As Pretty a Piece of Flesh
by Baroness Kika
Summary: Modern AU; Katniss expects the awful sunburns, stupid costumes, and sticky mead stains when she takes a job at the local Renaissance Festival. What she doesn't expect is to catch the attention of the mysterious blue-eyed glass blower who just so happens to have a penchant for saving damsels in distress. Cover art by Ro Nordmann, originally submitted for the F4LLS charity drive.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: This story was originally submitted for the F4LLS charity drive in September. Minor changes and additions have been made to the original submission, specifically in this first chapter. Two additional chapters of new material not found in the F4LLS submission are to follow.  
**

**I don't own _The Hunger Games, Much Ado About Nothing, _nor have I ever actually worked at a Renaissance Festival, though I do enjoy a nicely cinched corset.**

* * *

**Dedication: For _sohypothetically, _my friend, confidante, beta goddess, and for some befuddling reason, one of my biggest fans. Every little thing about you is wonderful, S., and I couldn't love you more if we were blood-related. Thank you for talking me through the early stages of this story, and for threatening me with bodily harm were I to let it go unfinished. Happy belated birthday, Merry Christmas, and thank you for every wonderful thing you do for me.  
**

* * *

This, Katniss decides, is the dumbest fucking job on the planet. She was pretty sure it would be when she agreed to go for the interview, but she figured she wouldn't get it anyway, what with her winning personality and stunning good looks. And yet, the bubbly blonde maven with the shockingly long fingernails and perfectly corseted waist (who the fuck wears a corset day-to-day anyway?!) hands her a lanyard and a welcome packet, insisting she head to the rental booth to pick out her work outfit.

"I'm sorry…what exactly am I supposed to wear?" Katniss asks with a cringe.

"Oh, my dear, anything you'd like! Portia and Cinna run the rental tent, they'll pick out something stunning for you, to be sure. But make sure it's something comfortable, something you'll be willing to wear all day! It gets awfully toasty back behind that beverage bar!" Ms. Trinket had trilled excitedly.

Katniss sort of wants to wring her own neck. She reminds herself that she'd gotten back into town from school way too late to apply for the usual summer jobs, and this was about the only thing left. And she can't afford to _not _work for the summer.

She could kill Prim for suggesting this place. Her sister will just have to die for making her apply, go on this interview, and actually take this stupid fucking job.

"Welcome to the Panem Renaissance Festival, Ms. Everdeen!" Ms. Trinket says happily. "Huzzah!"

Katniss is sure she's doing a piss-poor job of hiding the look of sheer disgust on her face at Ms. Trinket's ridiculous outburst. But more-over, the words that invade her mind are actually _Prim. Must. Die._

* * *

Katniss chooses the least offensive, least uncomfortable, and least stupidly expensive outfit that these Portia and Cinna people pick out for her. Apparently it's one of the "perks" that she gets to borrow whatever she'd like from the rental booth as her uniform; the catch is that it has to be returned in the exact condition that she borrowed it in, or else she has to pay for it. She honestly thinks it defeats the purpose of a "free rental" when you're working at a foods services counter, but she hardly gets a say in the matter. After all, if she got her way, she wouldn't be working here at _all_.

She puts aside the impulse to murder her sister when she gets home, but that doesn't stop Prim from gloating and teasing and being a general pain about the entire ordeal.

"Christ, Katniss, I didn't think you'd actually _take _it if they offered it to you!" she teases.

"It's the last job left in town, as you so delicately reminded me. Why don't you work there instead and I'll work your shitty Target job if you think it's so funny?" Katniss retorts.

"Because I can ride my bike to Target in ten minutes. _Driving_ out to Capitol Creek takes 30 minutes all on its own. You'd better hope you get cash tips to pay for all that gas, or find a carpooling buddy or something," Prim smirks.

The impulse to murder her sister returns, and Katniss decides that now would be a good time to turn in. Besides, she has "orientation" tomorrow.

* * *

The skirt is too long in the front and her tits decidedly do not fill out the bodice that she picked out from the rental booth. Cinna's told her about a thing called "fluffing" her cleavage that's supposed to make the thing fit properly and give her the "authentic" Renaissance look.

Whatever the hell that means.

The Panem Renaissance Festival is an obnoxious brightly colored series of vendor stalls and performance stages within about a two or three square mile radius. At orientation, Katniss was randomly assigned to one of the many drink booths that sells $6 domestically bottled beer and $4 cups of something that's supposed to resemble mead that's only worth about a dollar-fifty. Her roommate back at school, Johanna, actually home brews in their on-campus apartment, so Katniss has tasted actual mead before. This crap isn't it. But then again, nothing about this pastel-painted crap actually _is _authentic. If it was, she'd probably have already been burned at the stake for not being a virgin and everyone else would be dying of the Plague. It boggles her mind that people actually enjoy spending money and a day out in the stifling heat of Capitol Creek to "pretend" they're living back in the Middle Ages, but the pay is decent and it's only two days a week. She figures she has the rest of the week to try to find something decent for the rest of the summer—a waitressing job, a stocker at Walmart, _something _that doesn't require a corset and an hour's commute in her un-air conditioned truck. But in the meantime, it's a paycheck.

She's sauntering along the dirt path on the way to her assigned booth when someone runs past her, pushing a hand truck in front of him.

"Sorry! Coming past!" the guy yells when he elbows Katniss in the side on his way and nearly knocks her over. She fumes silently and watches as the guy deftly carts the dolly inside a little shop marked "Ye Olde Glass Blowing". That's another thing about this crap—do they really think they can just add the words "Ye Olde" to the front of these overpriced merchandise booths and expect people to believe it's authentic? She rolls her eyes as she continues on, determined not to be late on her very first morning, lest Ms. Trinket give her _another _lecture in punctuality and good time management skills.

She can't resist shooting a nasty look to the guy who nearly plowed her over as she goes, though, if only to inform him that his half-assed apology was decidedly _not _accepted. For a very brief second, her grey eyes lock on his. It annoys her, but she can't help wondering if someone with eyes _that _blue in the Dark Ages would be thought of as a witch, too.

* * *

She doesn't see Obnoxious Blue Eyes for the first couple of days. Opening weekend is apparently the most densely attended of all 10 weekends of the Festival, so she barely gets her two fifteen minute breaks and 30 minute lunch in the makeshift employee tent out behind the stalls and port-a-potties they _actually_ call "The Privvies". She's not sure she wants to know how much worse the area will smell after July kicks in with its consistent 100+ degree days. She's dragging her aching, dirty feet through the abandoned "streets" of the "Town" on her way out to the employee parking lot an hour after closing, along with everyone else from her cluster of refreshment booths when she feels eyes boring into the side of her head. Sure enough, it's him.

He's dressed impeccably well despite the dippy outfit. The linen shirt with the puffy sleeves tied off right at his elbows is a rich cream color, although it looks like he's spent the better part of the day sweating through it. The laces that tie up the front are untied and loose, showing off a tuft of impossibly blonde chest hair. He's got what looks like a brace or an Ace bandage on his right arm though, and Katniss grins cheekily to herself that it breaks the "authenticity" of the rest of his garb. Not that she cares, of course. He still looks dumb and the little smile he shoots her is annoyingly self-assured. She licks her teeth and continues on her way, wanting nothing more than to shower off a day's worth of sweat, grime, and spilled mead.

* * *

The weekends are themed. The second weekend's theme is "Love and Romance". Ms. Trinket passes around crowns of flowers to all the female workers and encourages the ladies to invite their significant others to come out one of the days so they can "bestow their favors" upon their gentlemen callers. A pair of girls named Delly and Bristel who dole out turkey legs and cheesecakes on sticks the next booth over titter excitedly about how funny it would be if Bristel gave her favor to some guy named Thom and Delly in turn gave hers to someone called Thresh. Katniss rolls her eyes and arranges the crown neatly on top of her head, and scowls at herself in the mirror in the Privvies when she finds it doesn't exactly look bad atop the crown braid that her mother had weaved into her hair that morning. Her regular side braid kept falling out in the humidity, but her mother's nimble fingers are capable of defying the natural laws of hair gravity; she has to keep her hair off her shoulders to stay even the slightest bit cooler behind the booth.

Katniss smiles her basic pained and forced smile all day Saturday as patrons order cup after cup of Coors and Killian's. Some folks really seem to get into the spirit of the theme weekend—either that or they're just couples who still haven't gotten the memo that making out in public places might be annoying to some people. Still, she tries hard to smile at them, despite seeing way more of their tongues than she ever needed to, and half-heartedly chants out the agreed upon chant of "a tip! Hip hip!" whenever someone drops a dollar into the tip box next to her register. Delly and Bristel are always louder than she is when it comes to that; not like she actually cares. She only gets to keep a quarter of whatever goes in anyway, and that doesn't do much except buy her a partial tank of gas and a dollar-menu cheeseburger and fries on her way home.

Sunday starts out less than stellar. She keeps her head down the entire morning because she swears she spies some of the girls she'd gone to high school with flitting around (literally—they're wearing fucking fairy wings) and most of them are the last people she wants to actually converse with. They seem to pass over her booth for the most part, though, and she thinks she's in the clear until after her lunch break.

"Holy shit. Katpiss!" a booming voice announces from the cluster of shady trees off to the booth's left side. She tries to keep the groan in her voice at a minimum.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. What can I serve thee?" she says with all the bravado she _doesn't _have when she's staring down Cato Magnussen and Marvel Timshell. She'd tutored Marvel in British Lit junior year until one day he'd squeezed her nipple through her dress and been shocked when she'd punched him in return. He called her the Ice Bitch the rest of the year and Cato routinely dropped ice cubes down the back of her shirt whenever he got a chance to remind her of the nickname. By the time senior year came about, Glimmer Sanders and Clove Reed were sucking their dicks on a regular basis so they mostly left Katniss alone.

Mostly.

"How's it going, Ice Bitch? Hey, that rhymes with Katpiss!" Marvel sneers. Katniss wants to roll her eyes and tell him the two don't actually rhyme at all, which he might know if he'd bothered studying at any point during high school.

"What can I serve thee?" she hisses at them again, trying to get them to just fuck off already before they drum up a crowd. Katniss likes being invisible—she's good at it. It's easier to just be invisible, especially to the likes of these two fuckwits.

"What's the house special for old friends, Katpiss?" Cato says, leaning against the bar top and winking at Katniss provocatively. It makes her want to gag.

"Draft pints are $6, flagons of mead are but $4. What's your poison?" she trills obediently per her script.

"$6 for friends, Katpiss?" Marvel scoffs. "Oh, come on. That's highway robbery."

She licks her teeth again and leans forward. Her voice is low enough that anyone passing by wouldn't necessarily be able to hear her. "Just fucking pay for your drinks or go try to con one out of another stall. I'm not giving you shit for free."

Cato and Marvel both suck in deep breaths and laugh like the douche bags they are. "You always did have a mouth on you, Ice Bitch," Marvel says with a shake of his head. "Can't imagine your supervisor would enjoy hearing about you swearing at paying customers though…"

Cato throws his head back and laughs when Katniss's eyes flash in anger. What she wouldn't give to punch Marvel again, or pour a big cup of the sticky-sweet mead and toss it right in Cato's face. Of course these assholes would be the type to cost her this fucking job.

"Good morrow, gentles!" a different male voice trills out of nowhere, surprising Katniss as well as Marvel and Cato. "What brings thee to this fair maiden's stall today?"

Obnoxious Blue Eyes's smirk is even cheekier than she's seen it before. His brow is damp with sweat and his puffy shirt today is more of a soft blue. It's spotted with perspiration and a black mark or two. The collar is tied neatly in a double knot, and the bottom hem is cinched with a leather belt. Katniss doesn't allow her eyes to trail any farther south than this.

Marvel and Cato share a mocking laugh at Obnoxious Blue Eyes's expense. "Check out this asshole!" Cato sneers.

Obnoxious Blue Eyes doesn't look the slightest bit fazed. In fact, he laughs deeply from his belly and strolls up to the pair. His height is inferior, but Katniss can tell he's broad shouldered and stockily built under that linen tunic.

"_Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass!_" Blue Eyes recites in flawless iambic pentameter. "_But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder, and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!"_

Several other Festival patrons have gathered around and actually applaud Blue Eyes when he finishes the soliloquy with a flourish. Cato and Marvel exchange confused looks, as though Blue Eyes is a crazy person on the street that's just flashed them or something, and they slink off after a moment of Blue Eyes staring them down. Katniss can't be sure if they actually left because Blue Eyes intimidated them or just made them feel like idiots. She hopes it's the latter.

Except _now _Blue Eyes is looking at her funny and it's making her uncomfortable, and she'll admit, a little angry. She could have handled Marvel and Cato on her own—granted, it probably would have gotten her fired, but it would have been worth it for that split second that her fist split open their lips. Instead, Blue Eyes here had to swoop in and save the day with his fancy words and perfect Dogberry-esque attitude and attract a crowd that saw full well that they had been giving Katniss a hard time before they slunk off.

She might be dressed in imitation of a Renaissance maiden, but she can take care of her goddamn self. She scowls at Blue Eyes and mutters something about him not getting her favor if that's what he was after before smiling saccharinely at the next person who approaches her booth and pouring them a plastic cup full of Killian's. When she looks up a minute later, Blue Eyes is gone.

* * *

She learns Blue Eyes has an actual name the next weekend. She's told she can go home early on Saturday due to the threat of lightning storms later that have pretty much emptied out the Festival and her booth hasn't had a customer in almost an hour. She's holding up the bottom of the flowing skirt she's reluctantly gotten used to by now and trying to artfully dodge the muddiest of puddles when she notices that whatever crowd still left inside the Festival is gathered under the covered Glass Blowing booth, crammed in asses-to-elbows in the few benches set out for people to rest on during the hourly demonstrations.

She spies him in the middle of the booth's workspace. A set of four smoldering ovens are arranged in a semi-circle around him, the closest being not but three feet from him, and he's got a long metal pipe twirling around in his left hand. His right holds a damp cloth he's using to shape and mold the thick piece of molten glass on the end of the pipe. Every so often, he removes it from its spot on the guard rails in front of him and blows gently into the other end of the pipe. He makes the entire process look effortless, seamless, as though it's a menial task like brushing one's teeth. He stands up after a moment and moves over the oven, guiding the now slightly more shaped piece of green glass into the circular mouth, never quite stopping its gentle spin.

Somehow Katniss ends up standing under the wooden awning, her arms folded tightly over her chest as she watches him work. His eyes never stray from the molten ball on the end of his pipe, not even when the other man in the booth with him—taller, leaner, with coppery red hair and eyes just as green as his are blue—uses another pipe to dollop a bit more of the fiery substance on the top end of the circular blob. As soon as Blue Eyes cuts it off, he's back at work spinning and molding it into a long stem. He doesn't even seem to need to search for the tools he needs; they just appear in his hand at the exact moment he needs them.

She stops watching his hands after a moment and begins to watch his face instead. She finds herself fixated on his eyelashes—even from several feet away, she can see they're incredibly long and blonde, just like the rest of the hair on his body (she imagines). He barely seems to blink, but she wonders if they tangle together just the tiniest bit when he does. He does squint an awful lot, though, and tiny little lines are already etched deep around his eyes as a result. Her slight trance of studying his face is broken when he trades spots with the coppery haired man after transferring the thing that's now quite clearly a goblet or wine glass onto the other man's pole. The redhead shapes the mouth of the goblet almost as seamlessly and the next thing she knows, they're cutting the finished product off the metal rod and setting it aside.

The group applauds the men enthusiastically. Even Katniss, who's not easily impressed by, well, anything, finds herself impressed by how fluid the duo's work is. As people file off into the rain, she moves forward enough to actually take a look at the plentiful shelves of their fragile merchandise. Vases sit next to differently colored wine glasses that sit next to a row of what are specifically marked as "tobacco pipes". Katniss feels her eyebrows raise significantly at that, but she notices they seem to be almost sold out of the things. She supposes she can't exactly fault these guys for making money however they need to.

"See anything you like, m'lady?" a honey-coated voice croons at her. She startles and her eyes lock onto the deep green ones of this newer stranger.

"Just looking, thanks," she says coldly and looks back downwards.

Blue Eyes is talking to a gaggle of girls on the other side of the counter, all of whom are tittering and cooing over every word he says. Katniss wonders how on earth either of these guys gets _any_ work done at all when they're clearly the highlight of this little row of artisans. Green Eyes looks at her with what must be a well-rehearsed and well perfected sultry grin, and arches his head back to Blue Eyes.

"Hey, Peeta! I think this young lady would like a word with you!" Green Eyes says. It makes Katniss startle and her eyes go wide with shock. Sure enough, though, Blue Ey—_Peeta_ trades with Green Eyes (who seems to make the girls giggle even harder and more obnoxiously than his partner did) and looks at Katniss sheepishly.

"Can I, um, help you with something?" he says. Katniss tries not to stare at the eyelashes that surround his deep blue irises, but has to shake herself in order to do it properly. If she had a little more guts, or wasn't just incredibly tired from her day, she might jump over the display case and throttle Green Eyes for this little stunt. How the fuck had he _known _anyway? Katniss didn't even know and she was the one feeling—whatever the hell this is.

"Look, I don't need a protector, okay?" she hisses to him. He's clearly startled by the way he takes a step backwards at her words.

"I don't know what—"

"That little stunt last weekend with the Dogberry quote. I didn't actually need you to try to play knight-in-shining-armor," she repeats, choosing to ignore the way she flushes just a little around the ears when she thinks of the iambic pentameter rolling so easily off his tongue. _Why the hell couldn't he have quoted _Hamlet_ or something she hates equally as much; why'd it have to be _Much Ado_?_

"I'm…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Well, just don't, okay?" Katniss says, and turns quickly to scamper off into the rain. She spends her entire ride home trying not to think so hard about why he bothers her so badly, why he effects her as much as he does. She can't afford to think like—whatever she's thinking like.

* * *

The fifth weekend is hot and humid, thanks in part to the early morning rain storms. The only nice thing is that she has to radio her supervisor three times throughout the day to come take the lock of the tip box off and change out the dollar bills for larger ones that don't take up so much room. She has a continuous line at her station. She makes $300 in tips alone that weekend, which she's pretty sure will almost entirely cover the difference of her textbooks that her scholarships don't.

On Sunday evening, she has to stroll past the glass blower's because she'd been late that morning and had to park somewhere closer by. The staff exit out by the Privvies is the most direct path in and out. When she walks by the stall on her way to her truck, she sees a tarp covering the whole of the merchandise area, and feels her lips quirk downwards, almost as if she's disappointed. Which is dumb, of course. She couldn't care less if this "Peeta" guy and his green-eyed compatriot end up in the stocks.

_Why the hell did her mind go straight to "the stocks"? Is this cheesy shit already infiltrating her brain or something?_

There's a large fountain the middle of the little cul-de-sac that houses the glass blower's, potter's, and Celtic-style kilt's booths. The dirt path all around it is muddy from the bevy of patrons that have climbed in and out of it all day to wade in the cold water and escape the heat. As expected, the water in the bottom pool is murky and dirty from people using it as a place to rinse off their filthy feet, but the water is still cascading down in sheets from the spigot at the top, and it's simply too tempting. She peers back behind her shoulder, scanning the area for Ms. Trinket or any other supervisor. When she sees no one, she slips off her shoes and quickly unlaces the corset around her breasts to toss aside as she wades in.

The water is so cold it actually sends a shiver up her spine, but it's a luscious feeling after a day of feeling sweaty and grimy. She sighs and lets the bottom of her skirt drop into the water and flow loosely on the water's surface, not caring too much about how wet it's getting when she's going to go home and wash it anyway.

She's pretty sure this fountain is way more elaborate than anything that might have appeared in a standard village during the Renaissance. Maybe it'd have found a place in a palace courtyard, _maybe. _But the factual inaccuracy of this place doesn't seem to bother anyone but her. She's not entirely sure why she's so bothered by it in the first place. It's just a silly Festival that overcharges for food and drinks and admission. Maybe it's the drive that takes so much out of her, or coming home every night sunburnt and dirty that bugs her, even though it shouldn't. She's come home much dirtier from other activities in the past. But pretending to work in a hodge-podge Renaissance village is nothing like camping or trekking through the woods. The only advantage of this place over the woods is that she's paid to be here. If the woods could pay her to hike, she'd never leave them, save for classes.

She's so lost in her thoughts as she makes little circles in the cold water that she doesn't notice the outline of a figure sitting underneath the rushing water on the far side of the waterfall feature, nor the cascades of rushing water beating down on his shoulders. The water fills his ears too much to notice her at first as well, so it's several minutes and a couple of circuits for her before he's stood up to slosh out when she finally sees him, and promptly slips and smacks her head on the fountain's edge.

"Holy shit!" she hears him shout as he splashes his way to her side. Her ear is ringing from where her temple collided with a smooth stone, and she's hoping against hope she's not bleeding too badly. The blood rushing to her face from embarrassment is probably enough to make her bleed to death if she is. She's sure-footed and hard to startle. _Why the hell has _he_ been able to do this to her?_

"Are you okay?" he presses, hoisting her up out of the water quickly and helping her sit on the side. She tries to nod, but the short, quick action makes her see stars. _Awesome. A concussion is about the last thing she needs right now._

"Am I bleeding?" she says dreamily. He's crouching in front of her, and her eyes must be making things up, because no way would a guy who looks like such a goodie-goodie be sporting a tattoo _that _huge across his chest, ribs, and upper arm.

"Here, take your hand away so I can…no, you're not. That's good but…hey, what day is it?" he asks her. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Um…it's, um…" she stammers, suddenly finding herself largely unable to answer._ It's Sunday, right? Or is it Saturday…_

"Look, I know you said you don't need anyone to save you or whatever, but you might have a concussion. Can I just help you stand up?" he says, holding out his hands to her. He might be right—why else would she be hallucinating him standing before her without that stupid, billowy blouse of his on?

"No, I can make…" she starts, but her world spins as soon as she goes to stand up. He's able to catch her easily in his arms, which she allows, because she's pretty sure she's going to be sick any moment. She just hopes she does it in the dirt and not in the stupid fountain.

"Come on, I promise not to make a big deal of it. I'm sorry I scared you," he says, holding her slightly aloft as they step out of the cool water together. Her feet drag a little as he helps her walk towards the staff exit.

"My…my shoes," she slurs, trying to turn in his arms.

"I'll come back and get them for you. Let me just get you to my car so you can sit down and then I'll drive you to the ER, okay?" he says gently.

"No!" she gasps. The sound is almost too loud for her own ears. "No," she repeats, but more level. "I just need to lie down."

"Not with a concussion," he says gravely.

"My mother's a nurse, I'll be fine…" she corrects, trying to keep herself from gagging on the bile that's currently threatening to churn up from her stomach.

"Then will you at least let me drive you home? I don't think you're in any state to drive yourself…"

"Um…yeah, fine," she says, disregarding the fact that she can't seem to remember her own address off the top of her head right now.

She's not exactly sure what all happens next. She's awake but not particularly lucid for the drive home, which somehow does lead her back to her mother's house. Peeta holds the door of his sedan open for her mother and Prim to help her out and into the house. She doesn't see him drive away, but she assumes he did at some point. It's just all…so fuzzy…

* * *

**A/N_: _In the Cato and Marvel confrontation, Peeta quotes the character Dogberry from Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing, _Act IV, Scene 2. Big thanks to _meggiemellark _for finding this passage for me!**

**A million "huzzahs" go to _Chelzie _for beta-ing this story for me, _Ro Nordmann _for the gorgeous cover art, _meggiemellark _for pre-reading and cheerleading, and the indominable _HGRomance _for the round-about inspiration and kind words of support. You ladies are all fabulous and I adore you more than you could possibly know.**

**Part two is coming soon! Thanks for reading - and to those who donated to F4LLS, thank you for contributing to a great cause.**

**In the meantime, I'm _baronesskika _over on Tumblr if you'd like to talk about corsets, tattoos, or anything else under the sun.**


	2. Chapter 2

She's so confused by everything Sunday night that she only hears second-hand from Prim the next morning that Peeta had driven her truck back to her house. It's a few days before her mother allows her to actually drive, but once she finally does and Katniss goes out to her truck to run an errand, she finds a note tucked into the visor. His penmanship is a little sloppy, but being raised by a nurse has steeled her to read even the most terrible of handwriting (her mother's namely).

_I hope you feel better by next weekend. Sorry I startled you._  
_—Peeta_

Nothing more, nothing less. The gas indicator dial is at the exact place she expects it to be had she driven herself home, so at least he hadn't done something stupendously gallant like fill her tank for her. She'd really like to stop owing him favors before he gets the wrong idea about how to cash in on her appreciation.

The best way to combat that, she decides, is by just thanking him. She stops by the glass blowing booth right after she walks through the staff entrance and searches around for that mop of unruly hair that never quite looks thoroughly combed. She finds him crouching behind one of the display cases, where his nimble fingers are arranging a row of chess pawns in various colors on a simple cardboard chessboard. She drums her fingers on the wooden counter top and waits until he stands up before offering him about as wide of a smile as she can muster.

"Hi," she says softly.

"Hey. Feeling alright?" he responds, one half of his mouth quirking upwards in a lopsided smile. She finds herself getting simultaneously annoyed and intrigued by this look on his face. She sighs shortly and shuffles her feet.

"I just wanted to say thank you for last weekend. It was nice of you to drive me home. You were right—my mom said I had a decent concussion and I probably would have crashed my truck if I'd driven myself. So, you know…thanks."

"You're welcome," he says genuinely, and doesn't offer any more than that. His mouth is still quirked in that weird position, and his eyes dart away a second after she feels herself offering a less grimacing smile than she'd offered moments before.

"Anyway, have a good day," she says quietly, and turns to walk away. She perks her ears for him to call after her, say something about maybe waiting, wanting to talk to her a little bit more, something stupidly gallant and noble. She finds herself surprisingly disappointed when she turns around to find he's no longer behind the counter. It's like he's vanished.

* * *

He hasn't actually gone anywhere, of course. She hears plenty of the busty girls strapped into corsets that push their tits up to their chins tittering about the good looking guys at the glass blowing booth, and what a marked improvement they are from a couple of years ago, when the old man who started the tradition at the Festival ran the stall. Most of them seem particularly preoccupied with Green Eyes, mooning over the brilliant bronze color of his hair and the perfectly white teeth that seem to glint from behind his lips. When others mention Peeta, they note that he's a little on the shorter side, but the size of his hard-working hands have to count for something more _substantial_ below those lace front breeches he wears every weekend without fail.

She finds herself cringing hearing them talk about him that way. It's not like they're objectifying him or whatever, certainly no more than she has by refusing to call him anything other than Blue Eyes for the first several weekends, or ogling that impressive tattoo on his left side and arm in her concussed state last Sunday evening. Not like she was actually ogling. She doesn't fucking ogle.

She gets relieved from her post around 1:00, the absolute hottest part of the day that particular afternoon, only to find that the shaded benches in the employee smoker's lot, as well as the small tent, are completely full. She doesn't mind sitting in the sun, really, and does so while wolfing down her sandwich and apple, but she's sweating straight through the brocade stitching of the borrowed bodice, and that's a lot more difficult to wash than her skirt and blouse are. She accordion folds her brown paper lunch bag to fan her face, but all it seems to do is keep the flies congregating around the privies from buzzing right in her ear. She finally decides to take advantage of the misters up near the main entrance to cool down before going back to her stall, Ms. Trinket's opinion of that be damned.

On her way, she almost runs straight into Peeta. This time he seems more surprised than she is.

"We should probably stop meeting like this," he says casually as he steps off to his left to let her pass.

She nods coolly. It's getting a little tiring playing this game with him when she doesn't even know the rules. Surely there _have_ to be rules for a working relationship between two people, even those who don't exactly work close together, right?

His eyes fall on his shoes and he returns her nod before shuffling back towards the staff entrance. She's calling out to him before she has the right head space to wonder why she's bothering. "Do I still owe you or something?"

He turns and blinks at her slowly. His irises nervously dart from one corner of his eyes to the other as he steps back towards her. "No. Why would you say that?"

"Because you…you're so frustrating." She can hardly believe she's actually said that out loud.

"Me?" he says, stepping back as though she's slapped him. "You've made it pretty clear you've disliked me from the moment we laid eyes on each other. I've just been trying not to piss you off any more than I apparently already have."

His words cut deep. He's annoyingly pretty and she'd like to get a better look at that tattoo of his—but she doesn't dislike him. Much.

"You almost ran me down with that dolly of yours the first time we saw each other," she says with her eyes narrowed.

"I didn't mean to. I was in a hurry, Finnick and I weren't going to be ready to open the stall at 10 if I didn't hurry."

"And then you made me look weak in front of those two assholes I could have easily handled on my own," she continues.

"By losing your temper and tossing a beer in their faces? People in your job have gotten fired for a lot less than that, you know. Trinket doesn't mess around with good customer service."

"You didn't have to do me any favors, is all I'm saying. I hate fucking owing people, alright, so back the fuck off!" she snaps.

"I will, Christ!" he responds quickly as she turns on her heel to continue towards her truck.

She's only a few feet away when she hears him mutter under his breath, "Not every guy who's nice from time to time is trying to get under your corset, you know."

When she turns away, he's gone again. And this time, it feels bit like a punch in the gut.

* * *

Her godfather's birthday is at the end of July, and Prim and her mother have given her some cash to buy him something at the Festival. She gets a discount from most of the stall vendors, but she isn't sure if the glass blower's is one of them. Still, the little chess pawns she'd seen Peeta shelving have been tempting her with their finite detail and intricacy. She'd like to know how those large hands of his manage to sculpt that tiny detail into such a fragile and dangerous thing like molten glass. All the same, she was raised playing checkers and eventually chess with Haymitch, and knows he'd probably be tickled to have a new set to play with. So she bites the bullet and hopes that Green Ey—_Finnick_, she reminds herself—is there to ring her up for the purchase instead.

Only fucking naturally, Peeta is alone in the booth, his feet propped up on a stool in front of him, rubbing his eyes and looking generally like he's in great need of a nice long nap. She doesn't blame him—the Festival has been slower than usual today. He double-takes when he sees her. She's been avoiding this stall ever since their little blow-up at each other, and she hasn't seen him sloshing around the fountain, either. It's actually been bugging her more than she's letting on, if she's completely honest. She's not quite sure how he's gotten so far underneath her skin, but it's not entirely as unpleasant as it had been before.

"Hi," he says apprehensively.

"I came to buy something," she says, licking her lips and wringing her hands together for lack of anything better to do.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. My godfather…he's a chess junkie," she says, looking down at the red and clear pieces on the bottom shelf.

"Oh. Well, I'm happy to sell you the pieces, but I don't have the ability really replicate an actual board," he says as he slides open the panel that closes off the back of the case and squats down. When he stands, he places the red King in front of her and nods at her when her fingertips reach out for it. "The pawns are all 1 and ¼ in diameter and the rest from the rooks to the King are 1 and ¾. They're pretty basic competition sizes, except my Knights might be a bit wider front to back. And obviously they don't play competitively with glass pieces."

"They're really lovely, though," she says gently. Finally something she says to him isn't laced with bile and contempt for a change.

"Thanks. You're an employee so the entire set will be $122 after your discount," he says.

Katniss almost chokes on her tongue. She really loves Haymitch, but the price tag is still nothing to sneeze at. "Right. Um… Is cash okay?" she asks, wondering quickly whether she has enough to cover this.

"Definitely. I can hold them for you and wrap them all individually or whatever so you can just grab them when you're heading to your truck," he says, replacing the King amongst the red pieces and moving them carefully out of the display.

"That'd be great," she says, pulling her wallet out of her purse and counting out her bills. Her cheeks flush when she realizes she's about $30 short of the cash she needs. "Um…on second though, can I give you my card?"

"If it's easier for you. You can pay when you come pick 'em up too, if you'd like," he says impassively.

"No, I want to pay now, I just—"

He looks at her sympathetically. "Your call. I don't care one way or another. If you change your mind, I'll put them back out for sale again tomorrow, no hard feelings."

She gnaws on the side of her mouth and finally nods her head. "I'll get cashed out in tips tonight, so I'll just come right back after close…"

"Works for me. I'll be here, Finnick's ditching me to have drinks with his girlfriend tonight," he says with a small smile.

"That's the, um, redhead who assists you?" she asks quietly.

He turns around and blinks at her. "…Yeah. Have you watched one of the demos or something?"

She nods her head quickly. _Is she fucking blushing or something?_

"You guys made the, uh, wine glasses or whatever."

He smiles. His teeth are whiter than this Finnick guy's, certainly. She chances a thoughtful look at him and swears she catches the jagged point of his tattoo peeking out from the untied collar of his shirt. In fact, she's pretty sure she can make out the rough design through the sheer ivory of the billowy linen. Why the hell does that fascinate her so? She doesn't even think tattoos are attractive.

"Yeah, I need to blow more of those. I keep screwing them up. The color is all…wrong," he says, his eyebrows knitting together in a funny way. "Sorry. I get persnickity about my pieces sometimes."

She opens her mouth to ask something else, but Finnick chooses that moment to bounce over the counter top and grin cheekily at Peeta.

"Shit, man, what the hell have I told you about doing that?" Peeta swears.

"Aw, I've never broken a single thing and you know it. How're you m'lady?" he croons playfully. Usually this sort of wanton flirtation would get under Katniss's skin. But she's able to just brush this guy aside in favor of whatever it is she's doing with Peeta.

_Christ. _Is_ she fucking flirting?_

"I'm gonna prep the irons—gonna try those goblets again?" Finnick asks Peeta as he shuffles into the work area. Peeta nods after him.

"Yeah, sounds good," Peeta calls after him. He looks back at Katniss a little bashfully and jerks his head towards the work space. "I should…"

"I don't hate you," Katniss blurts out quickly, then immediately wants to die of embarrassment.

He looks at her and smiles broadly. His tongue darts out to lick his lips and then he shrugs. "I didn't really think you did. I just figured I annoyed you…"

"I mean…no more than everyone else does. I'll be back for that stuff at 7, okay?"

"Yeah. I'll be here."

* * *

Her truck won't fucking start. Of _course_ it won't. Why can't anything in her life this summer be simple? And if she's honest, she's been expecting it—some of the indicator lights on the dash have been randomly flickering on and off for a couple of weeks, but she's been trying her best to ignore them. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Wrong. Fuck.

She spies him in her rear view mirror. Of-fucking-course it's _him_. Why would it be any of the other 200-odd employees of this stupid place when it could be the one guy with the overdeveloped hero-complex who has to keep saving her bacon?

But beggars can't be choosers and she just needs a damn jump start so she can get back to town and take it over to the Hawthorne's and see if Gale and Rory can help her get it up and running again. She's even got the cables, she just needs to flag him down before he…

"Hey Blue Ey—I mean, Peeta! Peeta?"

He whirls in place and looks at her curiously. He pushes a tuft of damp curls off his forehead as he heads in her direction before calling back to her. "Yeah? Everything alright?"

She slams the door behind her when she steps out and rummages around for the tool box she keeps in the bed. "Yeah, it's just… My battery is dead. Would you mind, uh…"

"No sweat. Lemme just pull around, alright?"

She has the hood popped and is unspooling her cables by the time he pulls up next to her. She remembers him driving a small sedan from the concussion weekend, but now he's in an uncovered Jeep that's missing all its doors. Of-fucking-course he'd be in a _Jeep_ now.

"Trade in your car or something?"

"Hmm? Oh, the sedan I had the other weekend belonged to a friend of mine—_this_ is my baby. I was just having some 100k maintenance done on her to keep her purring. I know a great guy if something's wrong with your truck other than just—"

"My best friend and his brother have a garage," she interjects. She doesn't mean to sound as rude as she does, but the bodice has been pinching one of her tits in a decidedly uncomfortable way all afternoon, and she'd forgotten to bring along a bra. All she wants is to get home so she can get out of this ridiculous costume.

"Oh. Good to know," he says. Is she crazy, or does he sound a little dejected?

They clip the cables in place and Peeta guns his engine. It takes a couple of turns of her own key before her battery turns back over, much to her relief. They leave both cars idling as Katniss winds her cables back up and re-secures them in her tool box. She doesn't mean to scowl at him when she sees him leaning against his Jeep watching her, but she can't help it. He just brings that part out in her.

"I think I'm good to go. Thanks," she says shortly, and climbs back behind the wheel. She watches him open his mouth as if to interject something else, but she closes the door and waves at him. After all, he still annoys her, even when he is doing something nice for her.

She finds herself wishing she hadn't been so curt with him about two miles up the road, when every indicator on her dash dies and the entire truck turns off. She cruises onto the side of the road and bangs her head against the steering wheel while screaming every foul word she can think of in one long stream of expletives. She's so engrossed in cursing her rotten luck that she completely misses the sight of the Jeep pulling up behind her on the road and Peeta climbing out of it until he's knocking on her window and scaring her out of her skin.

"Jesus, are you following me?" she says after she cranks the window down.

"It's one road back to the highway, Katniss, seriously. I didn't have to stop, you know," he sighs.

This is true. And she feels like a bitch now. "Sorry. I think it's my alternator or something. The whole thing just crapped out and I just—" She can't _believe_ she's about to ask him this. "Can I get a ride back to town, maybe?"

"I would, but I'm not going back quite yet. I'm meeting Finnick and his girlfriend and… Well, I'm going for a drink. But it won't take long, if you want to…"

_He has a date? He's late for a date, and he's still stopping to play hero on the side of the road? Jesus, the pair on this guy…_

"I don't want to put you out. I'll just call my friend or something and see what time he gets off work," she says, reaching for her phone in her purse and praying it still has a charge left.

"Actually, if you don't mind me using you as maybe a little bit of an…well, as an excuse, you'd be doing me a favor. I really don't want to be out late tonight, and Finnick tends to get a little rowdy on Sunday nights," he presses.

Something about his blithering gets to her, but not in the way she expected. She feels the bodice pinch her in that weird way again and grimmaces. "I, um… I forgot a change of clothes since I thought I'd be going straight home."

He smiles, and she swears to God she sees his eyes fucking twinkle. _Who _is_ this guy, Santa Claus's illegitimate son?_ "Neither did I. At least we'll look like idiots together."

* * *

It's hard to shoot pool and throw darts with the bodice cutting off circulation to her nipples, but Katniss is pleasantly surprised at how much fun she ends up having at the bar with Peeta and Finnick. Finnick's girlfriend, Annie, seems nice enough, though a little odd. Her friend Ursula, on the other hand, doesn't seem particularly friendly at all, and Katniss can't help but wonder if _she_ might have something to do with that. Peeta claims Katniss as his partner for both pool and darts, which works in his advantage for darts—numb nipples or not, she still has a killer aim with darts.

True to his word, they duck out after an hour, Peeta using her as his excuse to leave early. She tries to ignore the heated stare she gets from Ursula, although apparently Peeta notices it more than enough for both of them.

"Sorry about her. Annie is sweet, but Ursula is, uh… Well..."

"So I wasn't the only one who thought it's a little ironic that she's got the same name as a Disney sea hag?" Katniss blurts out without even meaning to.

Peeta laughs sharply, and instead of annoying her, she finds she actually enjoys the sound. "I'm honestly not sure why Ann's so hellbent on getting us together. I, um, hope you didn't feel like I was using you or anything."

The thought had crossed Katniss's mind, to be sure. But she finds herself not caring. She always cares when Gale uses her for the same sort of thing, but it feels somehow different coming from the man on her left than it ever has from her best friend. She should probably try to process why all that is, but they happen to pass by her broken down truck on the side of the road right at that moment, and she sighs heavily.

"Piece of junk," she mutters under her breath.

"You said you have a mechanic, right? He has a tow truck, I assume?" Peeta questions.

"Yeah, he does. We'll come out for it tomorrow, but maybe I'm better off selling it for scrap with how unreliable it's been. Probably barely worth the cost of repairs, honestly." _Wait, why is she telling him this?_

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I think it's worth every penny I put into my Jeep, but I'm sort of weirdly atta— Um. Never mind. You'll still be able to get out to the Fest next weekend, right? You've got some other ride?"

_Shit_. She hadn't thought of that. Gale damn well better be willing to do this fix on the cheap, or she's probably fucked.

"I'll figure something out. I hate this job, but it's my only option, so I can't afford to lose it," she says, crossing her arms and putting her feet up on his dash, making herself as small as possible while she thinks of all the bitch-chores she'll likely have to do during the week to make up for the cost of repairs she won't be able to pay the Hawthornes for.

He's silent for a few miles, and when he finally speaks, he's clearly picking his words very, very carefully.

"Look, ah… If you don't have it fixed up by Friday night, shoot me a text message or something. I can give you a ride out there if you don't mind being a little early and leaving after I close down. And before you sneer at me, it's not me trying to get you in my debt. I go out there anyway and your house is literally right on the way."

She prickles, ready to instantly shoot him down. But something about his contrite way of offering actually endears him to her more than she'd like to admit. She doesn't snap at him. In fact, he finds herself saying, "That'd, um, actually be awesome. Just let me toss you some cash for gas?"

"I won't say no to that. This baby takes premium and I have to refill Saturday morning before I head out and again Sunday soon as I'm back in town," he says with a sated smile.

He drops her off in her driveway, and she plugs his number into her rapidly dying phone before sliding out. She tells him she'll text him Friday night either way, and tries to ignore how he sits in the idling Jeep as she lets herself into the house.

When she finds she can't sleep that night, mostly out of anxiety over how much Gale is going to quote her to fix her truck, she rifles through one of the plastic storage bins she brought back from school until her fingers close around the gag-gift Johanna had given her for her birthday. Jo had called it the Purple Monster, and it had made Katniss's skin crawl to think about ever using it, but… Well, orgasms always help her sleep.

* * *

Gale's repair quote is reasonable enough for the circumstances, but he has to special order the parts and there's no telling exactly when they'll arrive, and even when they do, it's not his top priority to fix because he isn't charging her for cost of labor. She texts Peeta on Wednesday night that she's definitely going to need a ride, and that she'll fill his gas tank for him Sunday on their way back into town. He agrees with a simple smiley face emoticon. It should annoy her. She's baffled by how much it doesn't.

Thursday morning she misses a call from one of the restaurants where she'd applied for a hostess gig at the beginning of the summer, asking if she was still needing a job because they desperately need a fill-in for the weekend rush. She paces back and forth as she listens to the voicemail, replaying it twice before deleting it without saving the number. It wouldn't pay worth beans, she decides, and it'd only be worth taking if she could keep working at the Festival as well, which she wouldn't be able to.

But it definitely, not even slightly microscopically has anything to do with being carpool buddies with Peeta. Not at all.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks so much for the sweet reviews and all the follows/favorites the first part of this story received, folks! Fun as this story is, it's a bit of a departure from my normal fic-endeavors, so it means the world to get feedback, not to mention does it light a fire to get this little ficlet finished. Also big thanks to _Chelzie _for the edits, and _meggiemellark _and_ mig14_ for pre-reading.**

**Come chat with me on Tumblr (where I'm super originally _baronesskika_)... I promise I don't snap as hard as Ren!Katniss does. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

"You're wrong!"

"I am not wrong. And besides, wrong is a matter of opinion when we're talking about _Star Wars_, alright?"

"Not when you're _wrong_ about _Star Wars._"

Of all the conversations that Katniss expected to have with Peeta en route to the Festival the next two weekends, one that included anything having to do with her favorite movie was definitely not one of them. She wouldn't have ever pegged Peeta for a _StarWars_ fan—it made her double take when he said the same thing about her.

"Well at least you're not telling me you liked the prequels, that's all I'm saying," Peeta says as he pulls into a spot near the employee entrance.

Katniss pulls a face at him. "What kind of girl do you take me for?"

He just smirks at her in reply. She sort of hates that smirk of his, but it's regrettably growing on her. Or, maybe not so regrettably…

He's out of his driver's seat and rifling around in the back of the Jeep for his era-appropriate tunic to replace his ratty Rolling Stones t-shirt as she is relacing the cords of her bodice around her breasts. She doesn't mean to catch a glimpse of Peeta pulling off his shirt to tug the tunic on, but she most certainly does—and she can't deny that she likes what she sees. Even in the quick peek she gets, she sees that the muscles of his chest are lean and toned, his stomach planes in a perfect concave slope under his ribcage, and the tattoo she wasn't sure she even could tell was real and not just a concussion hallucination is massive and detailed. She thinks it might be something tribal, but the more she studies it, the more she thinks she can make out spindly branches and the gnarled trunk pattern of a tree.

She barely manages to avert her eyes before he turns around and catches her. She tugs the laces on her bodice a little too firmly, and feels one of them snap away in her hand.

"Damn it," she hisses, and pulls the thing off to see if she can salvage what's left of the tie.

"Everything okay?"

"My fucking…erg!" she groans, and almost tosses the entire garment in the dirt in frustration. He must peek around the side of the Jeep to figure out what she's swearing over because he appears at her side a moment later with a pair of shoelaces in his hand.

"Will these work?" he asks, holding them up to the bodice to gauge the color comparison.

"Where did, um…you get those?" she asks. She doesn't mean to sound ungrateful as she takes them from him and begins to lace the front up, but she's a little too distracted not to be a little short.

"I keep some camping gear in the back, and an extra pair of shoelaces have saved my bacon more than once. They're useful and cheap, so…"

"Boy Scout?" she asks as she pulls the bodice closed and leans forward to fluff her cleavage.

"Erm…Eagle Scout, actually."

When she stands back up, she notices he's looking up at the sky as if he's found something utterly fascinating to focus on instead of her. She flushes furiously when she realizes that he's purposely averted his own gaze instead of watching her fondle her own tits while she couldn't do anything but ogle him while he changed.

Shit. She _does_ fucking ogle.

"It's supposed to be a pretty busy day, so just come by the stall after Trinket lets you go? Or we can meet here, whichever…" he says, twirling the tie of his tunic around one of his fingers.

"I'll meet you at the stall. That's fine."

"Awesome. Have a good day, alright?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice trailing off as he heads towards the entrance without her. "You… You, too."

* * *

When Gale calls to tell her that she can come pick up her truck whenever, she tells him to give her a quote for how much labor would cost. He tries to turn her down, insisting that he doesn't mind doing some work for her every now and then, especially when she's hard up for cash, but she insists. They're both equally stubborn and bullheaded, but Katniss wins out, and Gale quotes her $200. It's a "best friend discount", he insists, but she agrees to pay it all the same, and refuses to pick up her truck, insisting he keep it as collateral until she does. She'll surely make extra money during the Festival's last weekend, she explains, and it'll basically be a wash as to what she'll save in not having to refuel.

It has _nothing_ to do with Peeta. She just knows it. Nothing whatsoever.

* * *

He's out front waiting the last Saturday of the Festival before she's even found her entire ensemble. Prim asks if she should invite him in from out of the already oppressive heat, but Katniss shakes her off, and rushes all the more to get everything ready. She barely remembers to put on underwear.

"Hey, didn't mean to rush you, I could have waited…" he says as he looks up from the thick book he's pouring over.

"Nope, no worries. I'm all set," she says, buckling her seat belt and doing a silent inventory to see if she did actually remember everything.

"Are you, um, a coffee person? Or tea?" he says. He gestures towards the cup holders underneath his stereo, where two massive iced Starbucks cups have pearled with condensation.

"Oh, um…coffee?"

He grins and hands her the cup, along with a little pastry bag full of creamers and various sweeteners. "I wasn't sure if you doctor it at all, so I just grabbed one of everything. The simple syrup they use is probably better, but I don't take sugar in mine, so I figured…"

She pokes the straw through the lid and takes a long sip. "I drink it black. How much do I owe you?"

He just smiles and guns the engine. "You can buy tomorrow."

They drive in silence, with only the wind and the occasional motorcycle whipping by to break it. When she finishes her drink, she looks over at him to ask if he has a garbage bag to toss it in, but trails off before she even begins. He's usually already wearing the lace-front breeches, but today, he's in a pair of cargo shorts.

"Tear your codpiece?" she teases.

He shakes his head, grinning like she's said something way more amusing than just that.

"No, I, uh… It's Highland Weekend."

"It's what?"

"Highland Weekend," he repeats.

"So…"

"I'm wearing a kilt instead. My family's tartan, actually."

"You're Scottish?"

"On my mother's side. I didn't take after her much, but I'm proud of that part of my heritage, so I always wear a kilt instead. An authentic one, to boot. None of that Utili-Kilt crap."

The wind is usually cooling on her face as they drive, but her cheeks get incredibly hot, and she's thankful he's not taking his eyes off the road so that he'd get a look at her.

All she can wonder about is whether or not he'll be wearing anything underneath that kilt. And that just raises a whole bunch more questions she's not ready to answer.

She's rueful that she hasn't seen Peeta all day, but she won't admit it, not really. When Ms. Trinket cuts her a little bit earlier than normal, she sidles up to the glass-blowing stand, hopeful that she can catch the last demo of the day before he and Finnick close up shop for the evening. She does, but the seats are completely packed, so she has to stand on her tiptoes in the back to get even a peek. And even then, she sees almost nothing other than a random pop of Finnick's red hair. She's always been just fine being short, even if Gale's always made fun of her for it. Now she finds herself wishing she had an extra few inches to her name that didn't involve stilettos.

Even though she can't see him, she can hear Peeta clearly as he calls out his thanks to everyone for stopping by. She pushes her way to the front, past a group of tittering, blithering girls in waist-cinchers, and for a split second, she's almost tempted to join them. The sight of the taller man in his green and blue tartan would be enough to set even her cynical heart on fire; but it's Peeta, wearing the red and black kilt of his own maternal heritage that sets her heart thumping wildly within her chest, particularly when it's coupled with his lack of a shirt underneath the matching wool sash that criss-crosses his abdomen. Her eyes aren't sure what to drink in first—the various patches of black soot on his exposed obliques, the way his white knee socks are still bizarrely pristine, or the full view of the tattoo on his arm and side that is now, most unmistakably, a very meticulously sketched Tree of Life.

She's shaken out of her reverie by Finnick's sugar-coated voice.

"Hullo, Katniss," he says, smirking a little when she startles.

"H-Hey, Finnick. I missed the last demo, huh?"

"There will be two tomorrow, but just the ones in the morning and the last of the evening, if the ovens are still even warm enough."

"They're not on?" Katniss asks, confused.

"They take two days to cool down," Peeta interjects, smiling at Katniss and swiping at a bit of perspiration dotted across his brow with the back of his arm. "I'm gonna be just a minute, do you want the keys to the Jeep?"

"N-no, that's fine. I'll, uh…I'll wait."

"I'll be quick." Peeta smiles and turns on his toe quickly, but Finnick doesn't budge. He reaches overhead and grips the stall's awning with the tips of his fingers before leaning forward toward her.

"Before you run off, lovely, may I have a word?" Finnick coos. Katniss shrugs in response, although something about his tone is anything but reassuring. "You know…Peeta is one of my best friends."

"I've noticed," she says, swallowing over the significant lump in her throat.

"So forgive me for being a walking cliche, but… He's a good guy. He deserves a good girl. A girl who won't jerk him around on a short chain before turning him loose and never speaking to him again."

"I, um…"

"I think you're a good girl, Katniss. Don't prove me wrong, eh?"

"I don't know…"

Finnick brushes his index finger across his lips and winks at her once before turning around to help Peeta manage the small crowd gathered at the till. On instinct, Katniss places her hand on her chest and feels her heart fluttering wildly beneath her breast. When Peeta happens to step out from the booth far enough to grab a pitcher hanging on the outside, she feels it flutter even faster.

When she palms the purple monster later that night after an hour of tossing and turning, she doesn't even deny that it's his eyes, his chest, and his damned tattoo that finally gets her to slam her thighs together and cry out into her pillow.

* * *

She fidgets nervously in her seat next to him the following morning, petrified he'll say something, or be able to tell what she'd done the night before as she thought of him. He's blissfully unaware, of course, and she's grateful for that. She's sure he notices how quiet she's become, particularly when their conversations have been so animated over the last couple of weeks. She barely gets her seatbelt off before leaping out of the front seat.

"Katniss, wait, are you…" he calls after her.

"Sorry, I told Trinket I'd be early, and I need to change!" she calls over her shoulder.

"Did I do something, or…"

She stops in her tracks. She wants to turn back and tell him that everything is all her fault, not his in the slightest, but she can't bring herself to find the words. She's never been good with them, all recent evidence to the contrary at how at ease he makes her feel.

She can't say it. So instead, she just keeps on walking.

* * *

She feels bad all day. She wishes she'd brought her truck so she could feign sick and leave early (and really, it's not so much faking it by how queasy she feels), but she's stuck until closing. She'll have to get over it.

The grounds near her booth are being set up differently today, and her brow quirks when she sees a couple of men wheeling in hay bales with spray painted targets on them. It strikes her that she ought to roll her eyes at this, another flagrant display of inauthenticity, but she doesn't. Instead, her fingers itch and she can barely take her eyes away from the setup crew.

Ms. Trinket radios her to take her break right as a man in a ridiculous purple outfit brandishes a microphone and announces the beginning of the final round of the "Highland Games" in the field…in this case, an archery tournament. Her fingers itch even more, and she can't help but sidle up to the bustling crowd and inch her way toward the front. Since she is technically on break, she shouldn't be doing anything inside the park, yet she can't help but raise her hand to volunteer when the purple coiffed man asks for them. She's selected, along with a few other people from the front, and is allowed five minutes to comb over the intricate recurve and long bows. She finds a long bow she decides she favors, but declines the help of the assistant to test the pull-strength—she knows how to work that out on her own.

She's set at the last of the four hay bales, and watches with bemused interest as the three men before her shoot. The first's arrow hits the bale, but just barely, and well outside the painted target. The crowd jeers, and he skulks off without a word. The next two fare slightly better, with the second hitting one of the center rings, and the third striking just outside the bulls-eye. When Katniss herself pulls the string back to let her own arrow fly, she trains the tip dead center and closes her eyes. The arrow sings as she releases it, and she only opens her eyes again when a whoop of approval roars up around her. A quick look confirms what she already knew—the arrow has hit dead center.

Several in the crowd cry out for a repeat performance, and she'd be only too happy to oblige, if it weren't for the odd feeling of being watched. But this isn't the same as catching Peeta's eyes drift over to her in the car, or even the feeling of the entire assembled crowd cheering her on. When her gaze flits to the purple coiffed announcer, her heart sinks—Ms. Trinket is standing right next to him, whispering quickly into his ear. Even from across the field, Katniss can tell she's livid.

She _would_ be the sort to do something to get fired on the very last day.

* * *

It's made abundantly clear to her that the only reason she's _not_ being fired is because there's no one else to take her post for the rest of the day, and the Festival is still swamped. That said, she's not entirely sure she deserves the nasty looks Ms. Trinket gives her every time she walks past, which seems to be alarmingly often. She isn't at all surprised when she's one of the first booths to be dismissed, and is pointedly told she should turn in her uniform and leave as expeditiously as possible. Katniss doesn't bother trying to explain that she can't really go anywhere quite yet on account of not having a ride other than Peeta. Somehow, her feet tread a path towards the glass-blowing stand.

It's Finnick who greets her, his dimples on full display as he grins at her. "Well, if it isn't our very own Merida!"

"Is, um, Peeta around? I might need to…"

Peeta ducks out from around a corner as if on cue, and throws open the small gate that separates the line of viewing benches from the ovens. "C'mon around, Trinket will be pissed if she sees you still in the park."

Katniss doesn't question this, and follows him through a curtained partition that turns out to be the booth's storage space. Despite the brightness of the day, it's dark due to its lack of windows; a fan oscillates in the corner, making it as cool and comfortable as any spot in this sweatbox of a park could possibly be.

"Lemme just grab my keys and you can take my Jeep if you need to…" Peeta says, brushing past her to get to a tiny table in the corner. She's just as flustered seeing him dressed _likethat_ and in such close proximity to her, but she gets over it enough to speak.

"I can't drive a stick shift. I know you can't leave any earlier, but I figured I'd just let you know—"

His eyes render her speechless when he stares at her. She feels the terrific impulse to look away, but his gaze pins her in place. The tiny smile that pulls his lips upwards makes her heart almost skip a beat.

_Damn him._

"I saw you shoot. That was really impressive."

"It's not a big deal. And it was pretty dumb of me…I read the training manual, I should have known…"

"I was impressed. It gives me one more thing I know about you."

He looks behind him and sighs. Her eyes trace the pattern of the tattoo on his shoulder while he's not paying attention, and then snap back to his face when he turns back.

"Look, Finnick and I have just one more demo and then we do a sort of fire-sale for the last hour before the gates close. If you don't mind waiting here, we can take off right afterward, and Trinket will never know the difference. I have to come back tomorrow to close up for the season since the ovens didn't cool down like I expected them to, so…"

"I'll wait. Thanks, Peeta," she says timidly. The air between them is oddly electric for a moment, and she's almost certain that he's going to step towards her. Instead, he heads back out through the curtain and she can't deny her disappointment.

* * *

Her eyelids feel tacky from the thin layer of perspiration that she wipes away with the back of her hand when she sits up. After he'd left her to do his demo, she'd stretched out on the floor and tucked her arm under her head as a makeshift pillow to try to quell the oncoming headache she'd been feeling since her tongue-lashing from Ms. Trinket. She hadn't actually meant to fall asleep, of course, and her back screams in protest as she sits up. The breeze from the fan feels good against her skin as she gets to her feet to peek outside the curtain. From the lack of hustle and bustle outside, she's pretty sure she's napped until closing time.

"Peeta?" she whispers, slipping out of the storage room and glancing around the seemingly abandoned stall. "Peeta?"

"You don't have to whisper," his voice sounds from the demo area. "Trinket's long gone."

He's sitting at one of the benches, rolling the long glass-blowing pipe on the guard rails in front of him, a blob of hot glass beginning to form over the wet rag in his hand. She looks around for Finnick, and spies him shaking his head when she looks back at him.

"He needed to take off. This piece I can do on my own, and I didn't want to wake you, so I figured I'd try it quick before we head out."

He shifts the pipe in his hand and places his lips at the end to blow into it. Without the constricting bodice cutting into her ribs, she finds the deep breath she has to draw in at the sight much easier.

"I'm happy to wait, especially if Trinket's gone. What, um…what are you making?"

"This? Just a stemless champagne flute. Real simple. One of the only things I can do without an assistant." He wets the rag again and continues to form the glass in his hand. She finds herself torn over what her eyes want to focus on—his hands, his eyelashes, or the fact that he still is wearing that damn kilt and no shirt.

"How did you learn this?" she asks as she watches him.

"Glass blowing? Oh, my dad did it. He used to run this stall, actually, and I took it over a couple summers back."

"Family business, huh?"

"Family hobby. We never made enough money from it to be our proper business," he says, a ring of humor in his voice. Despite the ease of his end of the conversation, he won't look up at her. She hopes that's because he's concentrating and not because he's purposefully avoiding her eyes.

"Are you sure you don't need any help with that?" she asks. She's not sure why, considering she'd have no idea what she were doing even if he said yes.

"You wanna learn?" he replies, his eyes finally flitting up to hers.

Her nod is tiny, but he clearly sees it just fine. He stands and saunters towards a bucket of water in the corner. Without a word, he plunges the blob of glass into it, and Katniss startles when she hears the piercing, shattering sound of it breaking. He's unfazed, and nods at her to take his seat when he returns to one of the ovens. There is no blast of heat from the roaring fire when he opens the door, but there is still a molten piece at the end of his pole when he dips it in and pulls it back out.

"You have to always keep it moving," he says, twirling it in his hand as he positions the pole on the guard rail in front of her and begins to roll it back and forth. "Not too fast, not too slow. Focus on how you're breathing, and time the rolls with your breath. Here, try it."

Her fingers reach for the pole, and he lets go when she rolls the steel beneath her palm. She takes a belly breath and pushes it forward on the rails, then exhales and pulls it back towards her. He beams at her.

"You're a natural. Hold on, I need to give it some air."

He puffs into the end of the tube a couple of times before lining it back up on the rails. She replaces her palms and pushes and pulls, watching with interest as he kneels in front of her and dips the cloth from earlier into the water bucket and cups the molten glass in his hand. She guides, he shapes—if she didn't know better, she'd swear this was a delicate dance between the pair of them, or possibly something far, far more intimate. Every time he catches her gaze, his eyes pierce into her; unless she's imagining it, they're almost more of a smoky blue than the clear, vivid color of the sky.

It happens by accident: he's teaching her to hold the cloth to mold the shape of the goblet, but her elbow slips and ever so briefly, the tip of her index finger comes in contact with the blob. She yowls in pain as he springs into action, practically flinging the rod in the water bucket and lifting her over the short fence before dragging her to the still bubbling, gushing fountain in the tiny square. She doesn't have time to wonder why the fountain is still running, now nearly a full hour after the final patron has left the Festival, when he shoves her singed finger under the frigid curtain of water. She yelps in relief.

"You don't usually get your first slag burn until you're practicing by yourself," he says, concern heavy in his voice.

"Does it always hurt so much?" she hisses.

"Always," he confirms. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," she says. With the running water soothing the ferocious burn, she's acutely aware of his proximity. As one hand firmly grasps her wrist to hold it under the current of water, the other lingers delicately on her lower back. His arms are all sinewy, the skin slick with water droplets, making the deep etches of ink underneath his creamy flesh almost glint in the sunlight. She's enraptured by him, and she knows it. She's a goner, and she shouldn't be. One step further still—she can tell she isn't the only one.

It's sudden but fluid: his palm on her lower back moves to her hip, spinning her in place. His other hand drops her wrist and wraps around her waist, effectively crushing him to her, and she melts against him without hesitation. Her unburned fingers lace in the damp ringlets at the nape of his neck while the other cups the running water, and when his lips crash against hers, she feels before she hears the gurgle in the back of her throat that seems to say "_Finally_".

She's not sure how long they remain with just their lips tangled together before his head pivots to the side and he sucks her bottom lip in between his own, but she presses her chest against his in acceptance. When he shudders a minute later, she tightens her arm around his shoulder blades, tugging at his curls in the same moment the tips of their tongues finally meet. He turns them slightly, and she feels a rush of cold water lap over her chest, instantly drenching the thin, airy linen of the hippie-style tank blouse Prim had given her for her birthday. The temperature of the water sharply contrasts the rolling boil just under her skin. Her fingers wrest away from his hair and slide down his bare chest, hitching only slightly over the sash across his chest. If she didn't know better, she'd swear he was on fire, too.

He's dipping her backward just slightly, her injured hand finally cupping the back of his neck instead of the gushing water for the sake of her own balance, when his mouth pries away from hers. She keens from the back of her throat in objection even as his lips find the pulse point underneath the crook of her jaw and his front teeth nip at the delicate, thin skin he finds there. His tongue charts the length of the thick muscle running from her ear to her collarbone, and when he reaches the notch beneath the hollow of her throat, she throws her head back and moans, not caring about the trickles of water that threaten to choke her as she does. His hands hold her steady as he begins to kiss up the corresponding muscle along the other side, rougher than he had been with the first, while her fingernails dig little trenches in the grooves between his toned abs. By the time his lips slant against hers again, her knees feel like they're made of gelatin, so she clings to him, hoping that his well-defined biceps are as strong as she thinks they might be. He holds her up effortlessly as he sucks her tongue into his mouth, a growl erupting from deep within his chest.

All that snaps them out of it is the sudden absence of the water pouring over them as it's switched off. As soon as their eyes open, they're faced with the harsh reality that they've been caught like this—not by Ms. Trinket, although that might be slightly less mortifying than the awkward stare of the swarthy maintenance worker. They spring apart as the man clears his throat, and Katniss barely hears Peeta mutter some sort of apology or explanation before she's fleeing for the relative safety and cover of the glass blowing booth's storage room.

He's blushing like a boiled lobster when he catches up to her; she's clutching her arms over the sopping wet linen shirt to hide the pebbled peaks of her nipples straining against the thin fabric of her bra. He pulls the shirt he'd been wearing in the car over his head unceremoniously, not caring that the material clings to his moist skin and the drenched wool sash.

"I'm pretty sure I've got a towel or something in my Jeep. We should, um, get going."

"Sure," she squeaks. When his fingertips graze her hairline to brush away a rivulet of water, she finds herself leaning into the caress in spite of herself. When he takes her hand to lead her out of the park and to his car, she doesn't snatch it away. She even misses it when he drops it to pull the aforementioned towel from underneath the back seat to wrap around her shoulders. His eyes are an even darker shade of blue than in the fountain when his lips ghost over hers just before they drive away.

* * *

Her hair is dry when he pulls into her driveway and kills the engine, as are the tops of her shorts. She's still worried that her shirt is embarrassingly translucent as she tugs the towel off her shoulders and moves to hand it to him. He tosses it in the backseat and cups the side of her face with his hand.

"Katniss, I—"

"I don't know what this means, either," she interrupts, even as she tilts her face into his palm.

"You're going back to school soon, right?"

"Less than two weeks."

His face falls. "There's an employee appreciation picnic they throw after they strike everything for the season. It's Wednesday."

"I saw the flyer. But, um…I don't think Ms. Trinket will let me go."

He nods slowly, then leans over the console and presses his forehead against hers. They share a reluctant sigh.

"I, um…I don't want to let you go," he whispers.

It's too much for her, and every inch of her is telling her to make a break for the house and put as much distance between these damn feelings and herself as possible. But she stays.

"I don't suppose you can sneak me in?" she whispers back.

He grins at her. "No sweat."

"I'll drive myself. Just in case she kicks me out and you don't want to leave."

"It's no problem for me to..."

"I'm going to come, I promise. Just… I'll meet you there."

"12 o'clock?" he says.

"12 o'clock," she agrees.

Then he kisses her again.

* * *

There's no rational excuse for why Katniss changes six times before she hops in her truck to drive to the campground the Employee Appreciation Picnic is being held, and that's honestly what scares her the most. She's too irrational where Peeta's concerned, and if she's not careful, it's going to bite her in the ass. She needs to treat this just like any other day she's seen him, except she knows that isn't really possible either…not after those damn kisses.

God, he's a _great_ fucking kisser.

She settles on linen slacks that she can wear with sturdy tennis shoes and a ruddy orange shirt she's never worn before; she'd gotten it as a gift and decided it was ugly, but she was too polite to say anything about it. She is actually shocked by how nicely it fits and how well the color warms with her skin tone when she pulls it over her head, and decides to give it a go.

Not that she's actually dressing—okay, fine, she _is._ She _is_ dressing for him. And she should hate herself for it, for letting him get so thoroughly under her skin and weaseling his damn way into her stupid heart, but she just couldn't help it. Now she's a freaking goner, and all she can think about are his lips on her own lips, on her neck, on…well, pretty much any place on her body would be nice. And something about the way his kilt hung from his hips as they walked back to his Jeep the other day made her pretty damn certain that the feeling might be mutual.

_Damn it. Damn him. Damn his stupid, perfect, life-ruining tattoo, too._

* * *

If Ms. Trinket realizes she's at the Picnic, she hasn't said anything. She's never really realized just how many people worked at the Festival until she sees them gathered around the roaring barbecue pits and kegs of beer scattered around the campsite. A few people play volleyball or frisbee in the field beyond, but so far, Peeta is nowhere to be seen, and she's completely crestfallen. He's _promised_ her he'd be here.

She's about ready to choke down the last of her stale hotdog and call the entire day a bust when his hands come to rest on her shoulders. As she startles, she notices the thin white scars on his hands and forearms for the very first time—no doubt a by-product of hours spent over ovens handling molten glass. She could curse herself for how her heart flutters when she turns around and meets his eyes.

"I thought you'd changed your mind," she admits in a low whisper.

"Oh, I've been here for a while, I just kept getting pulled aside by… Well, anyway, I'm sorry. I've been trying to get to you all afternoon."

His proximity is enough to make her weak in the knees and she sort of hates him for it. She hates this effect he has on her, even though she really doesn't at all.

"Are you actually having fun here, or…"

"What'd you have in mind?" she asks so abruptly that she actually startles him.

"It's a big campground," he replies with a grin. "And there's a decent hiking trail I like a little ways over…"

Her eyes light up. She's pretty sure she knows the trail he's talking about. Usually she and Gale and his brothers go on a two-day hike right before she heads back to school, but the boys had to cancel this year and she wasn't sure if she wanted to do it on her own. She only wishes she'd brought her hiking boots instead of just her tennis shoes.

"Then let's get the hell out of here before Ms. Trinket notices I 'stole' a hot dog."

When he reaches for her hand, she doesn't hesitate to take it. It feels even nicer than it had the other day.

* * *

There's a decent sized bluff that overlooks the whole of Capitol Creek at the end of Peeta's favorite trail, and a pair of squat round boulders at the lookout that they make themselves comfortable on. Their hike had been a relatively silent affair with only a few stolen glances each other's way until this point—now, with the sun beginning to sink lower in the sky, and their fingers hopelessly intertwined, the air between them is thick with something more. They both feel it, Katniss is sure about that. She's hungry for another of his kisses, but it doesn't come, even as she watches his mouth with desperate interest as he takes a long swallow from the water bottle he'd swiped from one of the picnic's coolers. He tilts the open end towards her when there's a few swallows left, as she'd finished her own halfway along the trail and disposed of the bottle already. She wants to decline, but her tongue is dry and she'd like it not to be whenever he finally gets it together enough to kiss her. She polishes off the rest, looking at him over the rim of the bottle as she tilts it back to drain it dry.

"So I was thinking," he says quietly, looking back over the bluff, even though she swears she saw his eyes darken just a touch. "I really _don't_ know anything about you, just like I said the other day. You like _Star Wars_, you're stubborn, and apparently, you're good with a bow."

"That pretty much sums me up," she says bashfully.

"No, it doesn't. And I know you're going back to school soon, so if I want a shot at…well, anything, I'd better ask the deep questions now."

"What are the 'deep' questions?"

"Um…well, what's your favorite color?"

She rolls her eyes playfully. "Now you've gone too far."

He laughs, but his eyes implore her. She points over his head to a dark green Douglas fir. "That shade of green, just there. What about you?"

There's no mistaking the re-training of his eyes directly on her breasts just a scant second later. His lips pick up in a broad smile—the same one she _used_ to find so annoying—and he points to her. "That. I dunno how you knew to wear it, but you did."

"This? This orange?"

"Yes. And it looks good on you."

She feels a pleasant heat invade her cheeks as she searches the severity of his tone for anything indicating he might be teasing her. She decides after a moment that he's being alarmingly genuine, and she finds herself smiling at him broadly for perhaps the very first time all summer.

When he leans over and finally captures her lips with his own, she breathes a sigh of relief. A hunger like she's never felt before overtakes her, and she's certain that only the continued pressure of his mouth on hers could possibly quench it. But she's wrong—when he pulls away, she misses his lips in a way she hadn't thought possible.

* * *

Nothing is said when it happens. It just _happens_.

They're most of the way back to the spot where their cars are parked when their casual hand-hold morphs into Peeta sliding his arm around her waist. She nestles into his side and breathes in the scent of him—something reminiscent of sandalwood, cinnamon, and a musky, masculine waft of sweat—and before she understands how it happens, they're kissing once more. His hands cradle underneath her ears to tilt her head up as she ends up half-standing on the tops of his feet to close the height difference between the two of them. Her hands slide into his hair, the golden ringlets trapping her fingers while she moans into his mouth. His hands roam everywhere—the heated dip of skin on her back underneath her shirt, her slender hips over the billowy slacks, up her sides where they finally linger under the cups of her bra, not daring to close his palms around the small swells until she nods and presses her chest forward. She nearly comes unglued just from the pressure of his skilled, scarred fingers as they knead her breasts through the thin material of the orange shirt.

She can feel the rough texture of the bark when he backs her up against one of the tall oak trees nearby and presses his thigh between her legs. She grasps at his shoulder blades as his hands pick her up under her ass to wrap her legs around his hips. She instinctively locks her feet together at the ankles, squeezing his waist to keep herself steady and aloft—a moot point, she realizes, from the way his steady hands pin her to the bark and keep her body from going anywhere. She's almost unable to suck in a deep breath from the heady way he kisses her, his tongue exploring her soft palate and the insides of her cheeks before dueling with her own. When he moans, she moans, although she tries to keep quiet, preferring to revel in the sounds _he_ makes. When she feels the front of his pants tent obviously, she wonders if he's the sort to talk while he's inside her.

"Katniss if we don't stop now, I won't be able to," he hisses when he wrenches their mouths apart. His eyes are midnight black from the way his pupils have dilated, his cheeks as crimson as they get when he's leaning over one of his glass ovens.

"I don't want to stop," she breathes, pushing her face forward to try and reclaim his swollen lips.

He shakes his head as he dodges her mouth, and she whimpers in protest. "I have…you know, but they're in my Jeep…"

"You trust me, right?" she groans, placing her palms on his burning cheeks and slanting her mouth over his.

"You're on…?"

"Yes. _Please_, Peeta." She hates that she has to resort to begging him, but the feeling of his hardness pressing against her quickly dampening underwear is simply too much for her to handle. She unhooks her feet as he moves to set her down, and she swears she's never seen two sets of hands work so well in tandem to pop buttons and slide fabric up and away to expose skin. He doesn't quite pull her shirt off, just hooks the bottom hem up and behind her head to expose her chest and stomach. He groans in appreciation when he sees that the hook enclosure of her bra is nestled between the cups. Her slacks fall by the wayside with his shirt while his cargo shorts and boxers are shoved only far enough down his hips for his erection to spring free and point right at her. If she didn't want it inside her so badly, she'd be tempted to laugh at the way it twitches against his stomach when he lifts her and coaxes her ankles behind his ass.

It's a moment, maybe two, of fumbling for the right angle before they're joined, but as soon as they are, Peeta's head falls back as he roars lustfully into the canopy of leaves above their heads. She feels her walls stretched in a way the purple monster doesn't manage, even when she has it buried fully inside herself. She's not sure if he senses this or is just trying to give himself a moment to feel her sheathed around him when he stills before rolling his hips up against hers. She clings to his shoulders, even though his broad chest keeps her firmly pinned against the tree trunk. When she feels the thickness of him graze her front wall, and the dark blonde thatch of curls above his cock makes contact with her clit, she thunks her head against the trunk and roars as well.

He isn't a talker, but he's noisy. She usually isn't noisy at all (something she learned residing in apartments with paper-thin walls) but she responds in kind every time one of those increasingly delicious noises falls from his lips. When he does finally murmur how good she feels, she grunts out that he does, too, and is rewarded with a slight swivel of his hips that transcends her to another place altogether. She almost wonders how he can be so good at this when his lips ghost over hers just once before sucking her bottom lip between his teeth. As he snaps into her again and again, she feels the world around her become blurred at the edges.

It can't last forever, she realizes as he tears his mouth away and forces her to look at him so suddenly she's ripped from the precipice. "You're sure I can…?"

"Yes. Please," she keens.

"Oh, _fuck_," he gurgles, and not a second later, his hips still altogether. She clenches around him, her eyes falling closed as he shudders one last, decisive time. His face presses into the curve of her neck as he pants through the end of his high, and she strokes his hair.

"I'm sorry... I just couldn't stop," he murmurs.

"It's okay," she says sincerely, because it really is. "We can…I don't have to be anywhere if you don't."

He pulls away enough to look into her eyes, an impish grin spreading across his face. "You don't have to go home?"

"Not until I want to. And… I don't want to leave you yet."

His smile is as radiant as the sun when he sets her down and steps away an inch or two. She catches him by the crook of his elbow, her eyes drifting to the ink on his chest and arm to study it closely for a moment before grinning at him.

"I can ask _you_ the deep questions?" she says playfully, tracing one of the long curvy lines with the tip of her index finger.

"I opened myself up to that, didn't I?"

His kisses her resolutely before bending to retrieve their clothes. When they tug them back on, he pulls her back against his chest and grins at her.

She figured this moment would be weird. It's not at all. She likes it that way.

* * *

He asks her to follow him in her truck and not ask any questions as he gets behind the wheel of his Jeep. It's unlike her to not ask questions, but she goes along with it anyway. If she can't trust him by now, she'll never be able to, and she really wants to. She really wants _him_.

They only drive for a minute or two. They're still within the same park, just at a much more secluded campsite. This one isn't meant for corporate events and picnics—there's a small fire pit and a trail with a sign announcing how far to an outhouse and potable water, as well as the distinct rush of a stream nearby (possibly a tributary of Capitol Creek itself). She looks at him inquisitively when she climbs out and surveys the site properly—he just rubs the back of his neck nervously and his eyes dart around.

"Finnick and I have this spot on reserve for the weekend. We always camp here the weekend after the Fest ends. But since it's a weekday, I'm pretty sure no one has it on reserve, and I was sort of thinking…"

She feels her eyes grow wide, though not necessarily from surprise. They'd just had _sex_, after all—asking her to spend the night with him wasn't exactly a stretch beyond rational thought. And she has to admit that he's at least being original about it.

"You're not secretly an outdoorsy psychopath, right? You're not going to drown me in the creek or slit my throat when my back is turned?" she asks with a sly grin.

"I promise. I was an Eagle Scout, remember?"

"I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer was, too."

"We'd have to Google that to be sure, and there's no cell service out here. But look, if this makes you uncomfortable at all, you can—"

She seals her mouth over his to shut him up. She trusts him—she doesn't trust people easily, but she _does_ trust him. And she hasn't been camping in ages.

Then her heart sinks. "Are we gonna, like, sleep in the back of my truck or something? 'Cause I don't have any blankets or anything…"

He slides an arm in the back of his Jeep and rifles around for a minute before pulling out a bright orange backpack. "I told you. _Eagle_ Scout."

"You just so happen to have a bunch of camping gear on you?" She side-eyes him harshly, suddenly a touch more dubious about this plan of his.

"The necessities, yes. I told you, Finnick and I are coming back out here in two days, and I just aired everything out last night."

"So you _did_ plan this…just a little?"

He cups the back of her head and ghosts his lips over hers again. "Honestly? I just sort of hoped I could spend as much of the rest of the summer with you as possible."

Her lips pick up in a smile before he kisses them again. "I'll allow it," she tells him.

He beams at her response and hands her the obnoxiously bright bag. If it belonged to her, she'd cake it in mud to stain it so it wouldn't practically glow in the dark as she's sure it does. But maybe he has a soft spot in his heart for all sorts of shades of orange, not just the burnt color of her shirt.

He asks her to help with the tent after they unload an impressive assortment of necessities, including a plush sleeping bag and a rolled up thermarest mat. It's clearly more of a request of politeness, as she can't imagine him not being able to throw down the tarp and pop up the tiny thing on his own, though she's more than agile with the small rock she uses to bat down the security ties. He unrolls the mat and unzips the sleeping bag entirely before laying it flat in the bottom. She can tell they'll both fit in the tent, but they won't be able to sleep without touching. She's very okay with that.

"I've got another little thermal blanket that transfers body heat back. We can use it if it gets cold," he says. "No pillows, though. Hope that isn't a deal breaker."

"I've been camping before, Peeta. I don't expect 900 thread-count and goose feathers."

He pulls her flush against his chest at the comment, smirking wolfishly before his lips begin another slow mapping of her neck. She curls her fingers into his shirt, her mouth falling open when he whispers into her ear, "You didn't come earlier, did you?"

"It was amazing," she says. She's not _lying_, but she might be omitting the fact that, no, she didn't, to spare his feelings a little.

"I'd like to make it up to you, if you'll allow me," he says, his voice throaty and impossibly sexy. She feels herself go slightly weak in the knees. That should annoy her, too, but it doesn't.

"Y-Yes," she stammers. He grabs her hand before kneeling to crawl inside the tent. He tugs on her hand and she follows, laying back when he presses gently against her chest. He hovers over her as he kisses her, long and slow, his body a scant inch from any part of her own with the exception of his talented mouth. She writhes a bit the longer the heated kisses last with no other contact, and he grins at her before sitting back on his knees and looping his fingers in the waistband of her slacks. She helpfully lifts her hips as he pulls the material down, wondering if he's noticed the dark spot in the crotch of her panties that's a combination of the two of them. If he does, he doesn't comment on it before pulling off her shoes as he goes. He tries to re-situate himself between her legs, but it's impossible with the way she slams her knees together as soon as he flings her clothes into the corner.

He brushes his thumb over one of her kneecaps. "I don't have to if you don't want me to."

_He was just inside you an hour ago. Why the hell are you nervous _now_?_ she scolds herself. "No, I… It's okay, I just…"

He leans forward and delicately presses his lips against her knee. The touch is so soft and slight, she might not have felt it unless she was looking right at him. She swallows hard and tries to regulate her breathing. He strokes the sides of her thighs with his knuckles, making her skin pebble up despite the muggy heat of the afternoon. "I'll go slow?" he offers.

"Slow is good."

Slow is an understatement for what he does. His eyelids flutter shut as he kisses her kneecap again and again. His fingertips ghost down her calves and circle the point where her ankle bone juts out, but no farther—how he could possibly know how ticklish her feet are enough to pointedly avoid them, she isn't sure. He lays his cheek on her other knee, eyes still closed as his hands move back up her lower leg, lingering a moment at the hook under her knee before his fingernails begin to graze along her clenched quad muscles. If his hands are tempted to probe at the apex of her thighs, he resists, and simply dances his hands up and down her legs, never lingering in one spot too long, even after his caresses shift to include a gentle kneading of her calves with his palms. After the hike and the exertion of keeping her legs locked around his ass as he fucked her, the pressure is exquisite.

Her knees finally unhinge when he begins to kiss her kneecaps again in conjunction with massaging around her Achilles tendons. His eyes open in surprise, and she nods at him when he releases her ankles and inches his way up her thighs. As they fall to the sides, his fingernails graze the sensitive skin of her inner thighs that he hasn't been able to touch yet, etching soft, looping patterns as they venture along. Still, either to be gentlemanly or just to continue setting her at ease, his pace is snail-like, and when he's within an inch or two of her core, already giving off a luscious sort of heat, he backs away. His lips are pursed, and he's looking into her eyes, rather than the thatch of curls at the apex.

"You're _so_ beautiful, Katniss," he whispers.

"I'm not, really," she retorts. She hates compliments like that.

"You are. I thought so the minute I saw you."

"You don't have to say things like that," she says, placing one hand behind her head and reaching out with the other to grasp him around the wrist. He lets his hand go slack, allowing her to guide it to her center and hold it there a moment before gently grinding his palm against her. She arches her back and experimentally presses herself against him. He takes it as the invitation she intends it to be, and his fingers spread her open and dip shallowly into her opening. Her hips buck harder and his palm begins to rock to and fro, all the while his middle finger seems to stir the juices seeping from her entrance like a swizzle-stick in a martini. Her entire being is on fire, and judging by the bedazzled look on his face as he watches her writhe, pull her own hair, and clutch at the sleeping bag beneath her, he can tell.

He backs off slowly when every muscle in her body clenches and she comes with a violent shout into the crook of her elbow. Her knees fall limply to the side as she attempts to catch her breath, and through hooded eyes she can see him pop his middle finger in his mouth to taste what she's left on him. He licks his lips audibly as he caresses the insides of her thighs again, watching with vested interest as she calms and sits up. Her fingers are clumsy as they hook into the hem of his shirt and start to tug upwards and their mouths and foreheads bump against one another's like fluttery, confused moths. His shirt is discarded and it's her turn to run her fingertips and nails along his skin, specifically the vibrant tattoo on his torso. She feels him stiffen slightly when she leans forward to trace one of the thick, jagged, black lines with the very tip of her tongue.

"There's… I can't go again quite so soon," he admits sheepishly, though his fingers seem to have no problem finding her core again.

"You think I can?" she murmurs against his skin before nipping at his biceps with her front teeth.

"Maybe if I tease it out of you. We have time, right?" he says, cupping her jaw and drawing her lips to his. She barely nods as he leans her back, her trembling arms just barely capable of supporting her weight on her elbows as he sits back and crouches until his face is just scant inches away from her still throbbing core.

"I promise, we're very much alone. So, you know…speak up," he murmurs, his irises darkening again in the same moment he dips his face down and licks a long trail up her folds. Her upper body becomes too heavy for her arms to support when he slurps noisily at her entrance and wiggles his nose against her clit—she falls back and her head thunks against the ground, although not so hard it actually registers between the methodical laving of his tongue against her over-sensitive bundle of nerves and the gentle probing and twisting of his fingers. When he pauses for a moment to once again egg her on toward speaking up, she does. She's pretty sure she makes sounds that are inhuman. If there's any predatory wildlife anywhere nearby, her groans, pants, and yelping cries of ecstasy are sure to drive them away. Unable to find purchase on the slick cloth of the sleeping bag, her fingers tangle in his hair, damp with sweat from the heat and exertion, and she tugs and claws none-too-gently as she feels her orgasm swell from deep inside her before breaking with a gut-wrenching shudder and scream of his name.

She doesn't see the deliriously proud look on his face as his swipes the back of his hand over his swollen, wet lips, nor does she see the way his tattoo seems to ripple when he chuckles and stretches out beside her with his arm tucked around her waist. By the time she's recovered her breath and her heart no longer pounds in her ears and thrums between her legs, her eyelids are heavy and won't open again for hours.

* * *

When she wakes, the smell of a burning campfire infiltrates her nostrils. She loves the smell of a campfire—it might be one of her favorite smells on the planet. She sits up and tries to ignore the stickiness between her thighs while she roots around for her slacks and shoes; Peeta has slipped her underwear back on her while she's slept, which she's quite grateful for, even if she does still feel rather exposed. When she crawls out of the tent, she notices with a certain amount of delight that he hasn't put his shirt back on. The limbs of the tree inked on his arm curl around his shoulder blade and along his ribs, and she finds herself a little lost in staring at it while he leans over the campfire, his arms tending to something in front of him that she can't see.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," he teases when he turns to face her.

"How long was I…"

"Long enough for me to drift off a bit, build this fire and get dinner started. I assume you're hungry?"

"Famished," she admits, squatting next to him as she holds her hands out towards the flickering, popping fire. The sky has turned purple with the sun sinking below the tree line, so it's cooled off considerably and the heat from the flames feels particularly good. She glances over and sees him tending to a small cast iron skillet, swirling around a thick amalgam of camping food. She smells some sort of meat or vegetables, and something oddly sweet mixed in.

"On our trips, Finnick always brings the perishable food and the liquor, so this isn't much. But for being a canned stew, this isn't half bad," he says before rooting around in the rubber bin for a couple of melamine bowls. "If you don't like it, I've got some dried fruit and Clif bars and stuff, too."

Katniss puts the bowl he holds out to her underneath her nose and inhales—if this is, in fact, a canned stew, it's an extraordinary one. She takes a spoon and dips it into the mixture; when she tastes it, her eyes go wide.

"This is _canned_?"

"…Okay, when I said it's canned, I meant that _I_ made and canned it."

"Jesus. It's delicious. What is it?"

"Lamb stew with dried plums," he says proudly.

They don't talk much as they eat, though he happily lets her scrape out the vestiges from the cast iron straight into her mouth after she's finished her second bowl. He leans back against the log bench with his hands tucked behind his head, and looks up at the first few evening stars while she finishes eating. It's almost as if he forgets she's there for a minute, and she nervously twirls the end of her hair between her fingers.

"Can I tell you something, Katniss?" he says out of the blue, still gazing up at the darkening sky.

"Sure," she says, placing her bowl to the side and turning towards him with her knees pulled against her chest.

"I'm _supposed_ to be at work tomorrow," he says. She'd expect him to be panicking as he says it—she knows she would be—but his voice is calm and, dare she say it, proud.

"Do you need to, um…"

"No, not at all. See, I...I quit yesterday. I quit my day-job. I made enough money this summer at the Fest to live off of for the rest of the year, and have commissioned pieces that should get me through until next summer, too. I'm not going to have to put on a blazer and a tie and answer phones and stare at a computer like a zombie anymore—I can just blow all day long, get my inventory even more stocked up for my website, and when next summer rolls around, I can do it all over again. The family hobby is finally paying off. I'm gonna live as an artist for the first time in my life."

When he turns to her at last, he's beaming. He looks so jubilant that his excitement is contagious. She knows there is no hint of her usual scowl as she smiles at him in return.

"That's fantastic, Peeta, really. Congratulations," she says.

"You're the first person I've told. I haven't even mentioned it to Finn yet. I wanted to be absolutely sure before I said anything. I kind of can't believe it."

She still isn't exactly comfortable with the idea of cuddling, per se, but she sinks down to the ground next to him and slides over a few inches. She tucks her feet underneath his thighs and his arm comes to rest on her kneecaps, his thumb stroking in the same manner it had when he was getting her to relax into the feeling of him between her thighs—and yet, strangely, this feels _so_ much more intimate. She places her palm against his tattoo, absentmindedly tracing the lines as he stares into the fire. Every so often, one or both of them sigh contentedly.

"I sort of want to freeze this moment," he whispers so softly she's not she's heard him correctly at all. "Just so I can keep reliving it."

"I'd let you if I could," she replies, her own tone of wonderment not lost on her.

He leans over her knees to place his hand on the back of her head to pull her face towards his; his kisses taste even sweeter with the lingering taste of plums on his tongue.

"I, um…I don't have grahams or chocolate, but I've got marshmallows if you want something sweet…"

She tugs him by the hair to connect their mouths again, stroking his soft palate with her tongue. "I'm not hungry anymore," she murmurs against his lips. "Not for food anyway."

She rises to her feet and tugs his hand. He follows her back into the tent wordlessly, but the electricity between them as they sink onto the sleeping bag is undeniable. He draws her face close and softly nudges her nose and presses his forehead to hers. Her lips pucker, ready and willing for him to claim her mouth, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls the elastic from the end of her messy, half-undone braid, and combs his fingers through her hair as gently as he can. He snags a snarl once or twice, but his lithe, talented fingers pull it smooth without tugging harshly on her scalp, all the while his eyes bore into hers and render her unable to move.

"Peeta…" she whispers, wanting something more, even though she can't identify what that is exactly. He's made her fall apart with his hands, his mouth, even been buried inside her to the hilt, but it still isn't enough. All she knows is that she's never experienced a hunger quite like _this_ before in her life.

"I'm not going far," he replies as he presses a fleeting kiss to her lips before crawling away. The warmth radiating off his bare chest is patently noticeable in the early night air breezing in through the mesh flaps of the tent. She follows him with her gaze, watching him unzip the entry flap and crawl out before working quickly to clean up the food and rifle through the rubber bin before snapping it closed and crawling back in beside her. The flames from the lingering fire aren't high enough to cast more than a few shadows into the tent, and she spies his solution to that in his hand—he's holding a fistful of glow-sticks that he snaps all at once before scattering them around the sleeping bag and tucking a few into little slips in the nylon siding. Pink, orange, and green emanate from the sides and give them just enough extra light to see one another by when he slips his fingers underneath the hem of her shirt and tugs upwards.

She's compliant to him undressing her, him having done it already twice that day. But both against the tree and earlier in this spot, he'd left her shirt halfway on, so the feeling of him trailing his knuckles up her completely exposed spine sends frissons of anticipation out to her fingertips and toes, to the very essence of her being. Her hands trail along the planes of his chest, pausing once or twice over a smoothed-over scar or raised freckle, but still, they don't kiss. Their eyes drink in only the other's irises even as their mouths and noses are close enough they can feel every hitched breath of anticipation.

He lays back first, and she shimmies out of her pants and shoes before working the button and fly of his cargos without his assistance. He's not fully hard when she tugs the shorts off his hips and tosses his shoes into the corner with her own, but his flesh is velvety soft and twitches when she wraps her fingers around it. She pauses to think how oddly _pretty_ a piece of flesh can be as she feels it become engorged in her palm. She pumps it a few times experimentally, grinning at the heady noises he makes in response.

"Careful, or you're liable to finish me off there, sweetheart," he groans.

"Don't call me 'sweetheart,'" she scowls half-heartedly, because she really does hate the nickname—or any nickname, for that matter. But if she's honest, a tongue as magical as Peeta Mellark's could call her any number of things she'd never let anyone else call her.

They're in limbo for a moment, staring at one another while their fingers roam and chests rise and fall. Finally, he beckons her to him with a curl of his fingers, and she stretches out over top of him, sighing with relief when she has his lips right where she's been wanting them. Their legs entwine, their arms cling, their mouths and tongues writhe until she's positively delirious from his kisses. Then and only then does he throw his weight against her chest and pick himself up on his elbows to hover over her as he continues to kiss her into oblivion.

"You trust me, right?" he asks as he kisses a trail down her throat and sternum before taking one of her nipples roughly between his teeth. She whimpers something that sounds like a 'yes' while she knits her fingers in his hair, guiding his ministrations the way she likes having her breasts toyed with. He nibbles, suckles, and forms a little vacuum with his mouth in response to whatever verbal cue she gives him—then he switches sides.

"I really, _really_ want to be inside you again, Katniss," he says to her. She nods and attempts to wrap her legs up and around his pelvis to coax his cock inside her, but he shakes his head and wrenches his body away. "Can I turn you over?"

She sucks in a breath as she bobs her head up and down and flips over onto her belly. His fingers roam surreptitiously along her back muscles, pausing over the curves of her rear for just a moment before picking her up under her hips so her ass juts up in the air. He nudges her thighs apart before positioning himself behind her; she can feel the tip of him brush against her folds. She aches to arch backwards, but she can tell this isn't supposed to go that way.

"God…" he coos as he pulls her hair back over her shoulder with a gentle grip. He pushes forward an inch or two, nestling his very head against her opening. His other hand grips her hip bone and smoothes it with the pad of his thumb. She wants to claw at the sleeping bag under her, cry out for him to _just take her already,_ but she's certain that would just delay things even more. Instead she stretches her hands forward and places her palms against the wall of the tent, pushing with just enough strength that the entire structure quivers, but doesn't really move. She presses her mouth into the sleeping bag, stifling a whine when he pushes forward another inch, but only enough to stretch her open.

"Goddd…" She wonders if he really is praying until suddenly, his hips snap and he's sheathed inside her the rest of the way. She's sensitive, so the nerve endings inside of her feel like they're raw and exposed, but as he draws back and pushes in again, she finds herself completely uncaring. The discomfort doesn't last long and the pleasure of his head striking her g-spot from this angle is enough to make her knees and spine already quiver like jelly. When he says it again: "_Goddd_…", she whispers it as well. He's making love to her, not fucking her, and it's exquisite. None of the sex she's ever had in her life has felt this incredible.

He drops her hair and places his palm at the back of her neck, fingers curling around her trap muscles to pull her towards him every time he thrusts forward. Her chin lifts from the mat and she swears softly when he shifts his hand from her hip bone to her center, seeking out and finding the little kernel just above where he's slamming into her.

They each find their voices—when he begins to rub too hard and threatens to send her over the edge too quickly, she tells him to slow down. She changes her mind after his pace becomes too leisurely, then pushes back and yowls for him to take her harder, to which he tells her to enjoy the ride. He punctuates his thrusts with individual words: "You. Feel. Perfect." She curls her fingers into the tent wall when his fingers find the right rhythm and the exact pace she needs. He whispers so low she barely hears him, but can tell he's murmuring about how close he is and how hard he knows he's going to come when he finally spills inside her. She isn't sure if it's the heated, throaty way in which he speaks that sends her flying over the edge, but just a moment after she goes limp under him, he collapses on top of her and says it one final time—"_Goddd_!"

Their hands find each other's as he rolls off to his side to give her space and air, and she stretches upwards like a dog once she can feel her limbs again.

"Don't…don't leave. Stay," he says as she crawls towards the entrance flap.

"I just need to use the facilities," she says as delicately as she can think of to inform him that she needs to pee. "I'll be right back."

She steals his shirt and shoves her feet in his boots before tromping off towards the outhouse. The uncovered lightbulb inside burns her eyes and she's grateful for the soft lighting inside the tent to soothe her corneas; when she crawls back in beside him, she collapses into a heap and curls up against his outstretched, tattooed arm.

"What… What possessed you to get something so big?" she asks him.

"You don't like it?" he replies.

"It's beautiful. And it suits you. I just thought I'd ask the obvious question."

"What possessed _you_ to get the stars on your ass?"

Her cheeks burn. _He'd seen her tattoo? How could he possibly have made it out in this little light?_

"It's not on my ass—it's on my very upper thigh, thank you very much, and there _is_ a reason for it. But I asked you first."

He explains that his tattoo started in honor of his grandmother, his father's mother, who used to take him for picnics under a weeping willow in a park by her house. It morphed into something else entirely when his father died, and he needed something to remember him by other than glass-blowing. It hits her hard in the stomach, but makes her that much more willing to admit that her own tiny, easily concealed tattoo commemorates her and her father's shared birthday as well.

"I already had a patch of freckles there that looked a bit like the Taurus constellation—really all I had done was make it obvious by making them stars."

"I should have known you're a Taurus. No wonder you hated me so much at first."

"I never hated you. You just annoyed me."

"And now?"

"You've crept up on me."

He smiles slyly and sits up. She's laying on her stomach and it's everything she can do to not swat at his hand when he cups her ass and bends forward at the waist. His lips press against the little patch of stars she regretted getting so much when she could barely put on underwear or sit flat without wincing in pain, and she briefly thinks that maybe her tattoo hadn't been such a mistake after all. He curls back next and folds her against his chest.

"When Finnick and I come back Friday night, he's bringing Annie. It sucks to be the guy in the other tent while your friends are going at it and not being too quiet about it right next to you."

"We don't have any room to talk."

"Granted, but tonight we were alone. I imagine we could be quieter if we weren't."

She gapes at him. _Did he just_…?

"Come back out here with us. Please? It'll be fun."

A soft pattering begins to thunk against the roof of the tent, and they both look up. The illumination from the glow-sticks gives them just enough light that it's easy to recognize the darkening spots of rain against the nylon.

"Water resistant, I swear, so long as it doesn't downpour on us. You didn't answer my question though."

"Peeta…"

"You said you'd allow me to spend as much time with you before you leave for school as we could manage. C'mon, Katniss, please? I'll beg, but I'd rather not have to."

She sighs and nods. He sighs and grins. Then they kiss, and that seals it.

The rain doesn't turn into anything more than a light drizzle, enough to patter noisily against their shelter but not enough to soak through. He wraps the sleeping bag up around them and tucks the thermal blanket against her bare legs and chest. And despite not knowing what the morning will bring, Katniss sleeps soundly in Peeta's arms.

* * *

They've just walked into a small diner on the outskirts of town the next morning when Peeta switches his cell phone back on from having it powered down to save the battery, and it dings with any number of text messages, voicemails, and email notifications. He scrolls through them all while she orders him tea and coffee for herself, then looks up at her contritely. Her stomach roils when he tells her he has to leave. Some 'family emergency' she doesn't ask for the details of and he doesn't offer, but whomever it is isn't local, and he has a long drive ahead of him. He takes his tea and a couple of donuts to go, and she walks him to his Jeep. She clutches his hand like a vice, dreading the moment she'll finally have to let it—and him—go. He pulls her in for one last deep, convincing kiss, and promises he'll see her before she leaves for school.

But he doesn't.

A week later she's sliding the last of her boxes into the bed of her truck and tucking a tarp around them, all the while resisting the urge to check her phone every other minute to see if he's sent her any updates. None come through, and she realizes that the night in the woods, and the summer at that damned, cheesy Renaissance Festival in that stupid, tit-pinching bodice might be it for them. She tries to summon back up the girl who doesn't care, the one who thought his eyes would have gotten him burned at the stake in medieval Europe, the one thoroughly annoyed by his constant hero complex and excellent timing—but he'd loved it out of her in that tent in the woods.

At least she'll be on the road and alone before she'll allow herself to cry over the stupidity of a failed summer romance.

Prim calls out to her while she's giving Gale a hug goodbye and promising she really will change the oil every 3000 miles, not just top it off with an extra quart and run it for another 1000. The mail truck has driven off to the next house, but her sister is waving a simple white envelope in the air, claiming Katniss's name is on it. She only needs to glance at the unruly scrawl to realize who it's from.

_Katniss—_

_Hopefully I'll have made it back before you take off, but just in case:_

_"Let me not to the marriage of true minds_

_Admit impediments. Love is not love_

_Which alters when it alteration finds,_

_Or bends with the remover to remove:_

_O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,_

_That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;_

_It is the star to every wandering bark,_

_Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken._

_Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks_

_Within his bending sickle's compass come;_

_Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,_

_But bears it out even to the edge of doom._

_If this be error and upon me proved,_

_I never writ, nor no man ever loved."_

—_Peeta_

She roughly gnaws at the inside of her cheek, because damned if she'll show this sort of emotion in front of Gale and Prim of all people. _God damn Peeta Mellark_, she thinks. At some point they'll have to have a serious discussion about him being a mind-reader when it comes to Shakespeare for her.

She stuffs the letter back in the envelope, then the envelope into her pocket, and turns towards her truck. She wants to get on the road even faster, maybe so she can call him en route, but she finds herself frozen in place the very next moment, as she spies _him_ sauntering up the drive to introduce himself to Gale.

_How the hell did that Jeep of his drive up so quietly? _

Prim hugs her one more time, then says something to Gale about being late for her Target shift, and would he be willing to give her a lift so she isn't. Gale looks between Katniss and the strange blonde queerly, but doesn't say anything else. She gapes at Peeta when they're alone a minute later, and shakes her head.

"I didn't hear from you, so I assumed…"

"It's a long story, but it's taken care of. I figured I'd roll the dice and try to catch you by surprise."

She feels the familiar pang of annoyance at him that she'd felt all summer long, but it dissipates slowly and she steps into his arms as soon as they open to her. He props his chin on the crown of her head, and she feels his chest expand as he inhales, as if he's breathing in her essence just one more time before they part.

"When can I come visit you at school?"

She pulls away to look up at him, confusion twisting around on her face. She'd hoped, sure, but she didn't suppose he'd actually offer to make the four-hour drive just for her.

"Um… If you really want to, you can…"

He silences her with his mouth, kissing her deeply and clutching her to his chest as though he's afraid of letting her go. She's honestly afraid of that, too.

"_I do love nothing in the world so well as you, is not that strange?,_" he purrs into her ear when they surface for air several minutes later. Her knees go properly weak, but his arms are steadfast and hold her upright effortlessly as she loses herself gazing into those cerulean eyes.

_Damn him. And damn William Shakespeare, too._

* * *

**A/N: Welp, that does it for this story, folks! **

**Two quick technical notes:  
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**-The sonnet in Peeta's letter to Katniss is Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which was suggested to me by _Court81981_.**

**-Peeta's closing sentiment to Katniss is from _Much Ado About Nothing_, Act 4, Scene 1, and was suggested by _Chelzie_.**

_**Thank you ladies so, so much!**_

**One shameless plug: In a similar spirit to Fandom4LLS (for which this story was originally written), the fantastic _Streetlightlove_ has painstakingly put together a charity drive, _Smut2SaveLives_ (S2SL), for which I will be contributing a story. Much more importantly, some of the finest smut authors the THG fandom has to offer are also contributing, and they are all writing stories you simply will not want to miss! The collection will be released on Valentine's Day, and while I know Street is close to her fundraising goal, any and all donations for this charity drive will be so appreciated, and will be muchly rewarded with smut far, far superior to my own! Check out s2sl dot tumblr dot com for more information.  
**

**And lastly: _thank you all for reading this story_. My most profound apologies for not replying to each review I received for part 2... I shall rectify that error for this last part if you choose to be so kind as to bestow any final thoughts, as they truly are all so, so appreciated. You are all most beloved by this humble, lowly authoress - happy reading until we meet again!**

**-Kika-**


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